


My Heart's Already Sinned.

by slamncram



Category: Thor (Comics), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, BFFs Wanda and Strange, Brotherly Bonding, Drag Queens, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Falling In Love Again, Family Drama, Family Issues, Family Reunions, Father-Son Relationship, Floor Sex, Gen, Heart Attacks, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mother-Son Relationship, Mutual Pining, Odin's A+ Parenting, POV Alternating, POV Loki (Marvel), POV Thor (Marvel), Parent Frigga (Marvel), Reconciliation, Secrets, Sharing a Bed, Sibling Incest, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Social Media, Stucky - Freeform, Supportive Avengers, Valkyrie/Carol, estranged lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-07-29 12:02:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 56,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20081893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slamncram/pseuds/slamncram
Summary: Coming home, for Thor, was going to be hard. It's wasn't just the fact that it meant traveling across the country on short notice. It wasn't just the fact that his father had just barely survived a heart attack. It wasn't even all the family drama that was guaranteed to rear its ugly head.The hardest part about coming home, for Thor, was going to be the reason he'd run away and stayed away for all those years. The hardest part about coming home would be Loki.





	1. Homecoming

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is _complete_. I will be posting updates every few days, but sorry in advance for cliffhangers 😘

The house had always been opulent in a way that Thor’s mind couldn’t quite wrap itself around. It was large, spanning nearly the width of the property, the ring driveway curving around the front of its imposing facade. The veranda had been built as a place his mother, Frigga, could sit and watch the sunset, a blanket across her lap, sometimes one of her sons with her, sometimes with her businessman husband. The wings of the house spread out from that central point, in red brick that emanated warmth no matter the season, the windows always curtained so that, when you arrived home in the evening, yellow light spilled out through gauzy fabric onto the perfectly kept lawn.

When he was younger, it had seemed huge. A castle, more than a mansion, with endless rooms for he and his brothers to explore, and a wide, open attic to be invaded against the rules their parents set down.

Now, it didn’t seem so much a castle as a prison. Stepping out of his old, cherry red Coronet, Thor would have given up the car itself if it meant he didn’t have to go inside.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the sort of situation where a classic American muscle car would buy freedom. Thor had gotten in the car to make this drive knowing that, and he was making his way up to the front door solemnly reminding himself that he was making it worse in his head than it was likely to be. Worst case scenario concerns almost never turned out to come true.

If he’d noticed the Prius parked on the far side of the ring driveway, maybe he wouldn’t have been so sure.

He didn’t bother knocking. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t been home in years, that the house was, technically, well-armed, and that they hadn’t known when to expect him. The key was still on his keyring, even after years of disuse, and unlocking the front door and stepping into the foyer felt like the most natural thing.

The house still looked the same at the front. The foyer was broad, opening up onto a staircase that led to the second level. To either side of it were tall doorways, one leading to the dining room, and beyond that, the kitchen, the other into the den, and then, past that, a hallway that led to one of the bathrooms on one side, and his father’s study on the other. There was a staircase, past both of those, that wound up onto the second floor. It came out next to their parents’ bedroom, and the boys had always been discouraged from using it. That had meant it was a great place to sneak around when they were playing on long, hot summer days. Thor had been yelled at by his father on more than one occasion for stomping around on that staircase while he was trying to work, either on a phone call or writing some proposition or important email.

Past the staircase, around the backside of the lower level, there was another, broader hallway. On one side were Frigga’s study, and a room Thor remembered as only ever being the place he and his brothers did their homework, or were lectured by tutors. On the other side, the family room. Thor didn’t know what he would find in there, now. Back when he’d still lived here, there had been a large television, and two comfortable, long couches, with a state of the art sound system. Everything a wealthy family’s entertainment room should contain lined the walls.

They hadn’t spent much time in there, together, as the years had worn on.

Finally, the back of the house was taken up by a long, warm solarium. Thor had spent many summer nights in there, watching lightning split the sky, and feeling safe as thunder rumbled overhead and the downpour split over the glass walls and roof, running down the sides so everything beyond the glass was distorted.

Stepping just slightly to the left, he could see the broken, refracted light that came through the French double doors spilling over the hardwood. That was, likely, the place where he would find his mother, if not upstairs.

If she was upstairs, Thor was going to need to take a few more minutes before he made the climb.

Setting his bag down on the floor, he went down on his knee, unlacing his boots and listening to the sounds of the house around him. Faintly, he could hear voices, firm and informative. A newscast. It _was_ still the early morning, and it was likely that at least one person was getting caught up on everything that had happened between the 6 O’Clock news the night before and now. There was also a quiet melody coming from somewhere further back. That, Thor suspected as he kicked his boots off and set them to the side of the front door, was likely coming from the solarium. Frigga had always enjoyed her quiet mornings back there, with a cup of coffee, music turned down low, and whatever mystery novel she was working on at the time.

There were also footsteps. Quiet, but growing louder as Thor picked his bag up again.

It seemed his arrival had not gone as unnoticed as he’d thought.

Or hoped.

With a sigh, he steeled himself, and then stepping forward on the hardwood, quiet in his sock feet, he called.

“Hello? I’m home!”

“I thought I’d heard the door.” A voice came from the left side of the foyer, and, seconds later, Thor saw his older brother, Baldr, walking through the door on the far side of the den. It hadn’t been nearly so long since Thor had seen him. Only about eight months or so. Baldr had gone out for dinner and drinks with him when he’d been in New York on company business. Even so, his brother looked like the stresses of the last few months had taken a toll on him.

Baldr had started prematurely greying just after he’d turned 30. Now, four years later, he had a broad peppering of silver at his temples, streaking into his thick, chestnut coloured hair. Normally, he kept up a regime to cover that.

Since they’d gotten the news a few months ago, though, it seemed he’d come off his Just For Men treatment. Perhaps there were more pressing things to think about.

“Baldr,” Thor greeted with a smile, opening his arms to his brother. The other man stepped into his embrace, hugging him tightly before he stepped back, looking Thor over.

“You cut your hair.”

Thor laughed. “You know, I didn’t think anyone would notice.” Up until about a month ago, Thor had been wearing his blonde hair long, past his shoulders. He’d cut it shorter. Much shorter, so that his morning routine now only meant rubbing his fingers through the short, few inch long strands of hair left on top of his head, and smoothing over the shorter, velvety sides, rather than the ordeal of trying to make everything lay nicely, or cooperating into being twisted into a bun.

Baldr rolled his eyes, and clapped Thor on the shoulder.

“I’m glad you made it so early. I don’t think we expected you until tonight at the earliest.”

That _had_ been the plan. Driving across the country had meant that Thor could dictate his timeline, and when he’d originally said he was coming, he’d only promised eight hours on the road, per day. He’d upped that, and shaved an entire day off his expected timeline.

“It was good driving weather. I got caught up.”

Baldr glanced out the front window, and Thor saw him smile. “All the way out here in that old girl, huh?”

“Of course. You thought I was going to rent? She does _great_. I keep her maintained, like a responsible car owner.”

Baldr had been known to leave simple maintenance, like regular oil changes, until the very, very last minute on his cars. It meant that they weren’t often kind to him in return.

“Hey, I’ve gotten better. Technology is wonderful, I just have my phone remind me every six months.”

“Does it book the appointments for you, too?”

Baldr’s guilty look was all the answer that Thor needed, and the two shared a laugh, before Baldr nodded at the stairs.

“Come on, we got your room all set up. You are staying here, right?”

Steeling himself, Thor worked to keep his smile on his face, walking with the other towards the stairs and starting up them.

“Yes, of course.” He answered. “I wasn’t going to spend all that money on gas, coming out here, and then pay for a hotel. What the hell else would I be doing?”

Baldr didn’t meet his eyes when he shrugged.

“I wasn’t sure what your plan was, if you were going to be staying in the city instead of here. You hadn’t asked to crash at my place. Totally welcome, by the way.”

“No, that’s all right. I don’t want to impose on you and Karnilla.” Thor answered, his feet automatically tracing the path he used to take, daily. They’d reached the top of the stairs, and instinctively, he turned right. This way had been their rooms. Three, one for for each of the boys, and a bathroom they’d shared. The other side was their parents’ room, the two guest bedrooms, and another bathroom that they had been known to run to. With three teenage boys, if one was already taking up their shower, it would be a race to get to the other bathroom and have enough time to get ready in the mornings. There had been a lot of knock-down, drag-out fights over that, before Frigga had intervened and offered up the ensuite she and their father shared.

“I’m also not stupid enough to want to waste two hours a day driving here and back.” He continued, stepping ahead of Baldr to open the door to his old bedroom. “Which it would be. In good traffic.”

Baldr snorted, letting Thor enter the room ahead of him. It had changed, obviously, since he’d been a college-age kid, moving to the east coast on his own and leaving behind all the things he’d been obsessed with, back then. He’d had long phone calls with Frigga, assuring her she could get rid of band posters and pack away old sports and movie memorabilia he’d left there. He suspected there were boxes of things he’d left behind in the crawlspace under the house. Now, the room felt almost sanitized of everything he’d left behind. His large, wooden frame bed still stood against the far wall, the matching dresser on his right, next to the door. The nightstand didn’t hold the things it once had – random textbooks, his cell phone charger, spare change – but instead housed only the lamp that had stood there for years. The full length mirror was still installed on the wall opposite the bed, next to the closet door.

Baldr continued. “That’s because you have half a brain that isn’t fulled by spite and being a pain in the ass.”

Thor took a slow, steadying breath and dropped his bag on the end of his bed.

Without unzipping it to begin unpacking, he looked back at Baldr. “Who doesn’t have half a rational brain?”

Baldr stood in the doorway, dressed in his expensive khakis, and navy blue button-down, his arms crossed, looking every inch the exhausted eldest sibling, dealing with the dramatics of the youngest.

Thor had known what the answer would be before he’d even turned around.

“Loki.”

With that one word, Thor knew he’d been beat at getting home first. It had always been a possibility, he supposed. Loki could have flown in from wherever it was he was living now, rented his car, and gotten here while Thor had been road-tripping it.

Thor had just hoped he would beat him, relying on Loki’s stubborn and petty attitude to weigh him down. If he’d beaten Loki home, it would have given him a sense of security and righteousness that would have made it that much easier to deal with the fact that he wasn’t the only one of the two of them at home.

“That idiot rented a car and a hotel in the city? We don’t even know how long we’re going to be here.” Turning away from Baldr, Thor finally opened his bag, and began pulling out the carefully packed clothing inside. “But, of course, he has to be a pain in the ass.”

There was a click, and Thor looked back again to see Baldr had closed the bedroom door. Probably a good idea, if Loki was in the house already. He was likely to hear them talking and come in here, raising a fuss about what _assholes_ they were.

“Did you not know?”

Thor frowned.

“Know what? That he had gotten here already? No.”

Thor and Loki didn’t talk, anymore. They’d been civil, of course, the few times they’d both been home at the same time, but that wasn’t often, anymore. Not for years. Holidays had become a time when their parents travelled to whatever resort had caught their fancy. Baldr had a family with his wife, Karnilla, now, and even if Thor wasn’t actively in a relationship, the family he’d made out in New York had been the one he chose to spend holidays with, more often than not.

He hadn’t had any updates on Loki in a long damn time.

“Not that.” Baldr answered. He moved further into the room, and held out his hands expectantly. Thor picked up a stack of his casual shirts and handed it to him. Baldr had always done better with conversations like this when he had something else to do at the same time.

Baldr moved away, to the dresser behind Thor.

“Loki’s living in Los Angeles.”

That wasn’t what Thor had expected to hear.

“Oh.” He commented, keeping his voice light. “I guess that’s why he’s driving here every day.”

“I guess...”

Thor didn’t like the curious edge in Baldr’s voice. Turning around, he dropped two pairs of jeans in his brother’s hands, and then carried the few dress clothes he’d brought over the to closet. Over here, with the door opened, he could at least hide his face somewhat while he hung his things up.

“Still a pain in the ass, obviously. He could literally just stay in the house. Save the gas. Save everyone the headache of having to wait for him all the time.”

“You really didn’t know that he’d moved back here?”

Thor hung up the last of his shirts and turned to find Baldr pulling rolled pairs of socks out of his bag without looking. He was too busy giving Thor a searching stare to look into the bag.

“Loki and I don’t really check up on each other.” Thor answered with a shrug, like it was a moot point. It wasn’t. It hadn’t been, for a long time, but it wasn’t something that Baldr needed to get into. “Last I knew, he was living in Seattle or something? That was at Christmas five years ago. He was doing his hipster bullshit.”

That got a laugh out of Baldr, and Thor was quietly relieved. It felt like by saying that one thing, Baldr had forgotten the interrogative way he’d been speaking to him just seconds before.

“Well, he’s in the city, now. I don’t know what he’d doing there. You know how he is about his secrets.”

Yes. Thor knew.

“But he outright refused when mom offered for him to stay in his old room. He said he had too much going on when he wasn’t here, and he didn’t want to end up trapped.” Baldr explained. “At least, that’s what mom told me he said. He told me not to worry about it when I asked.”

“That sounds like Loki.” Thor said, offhand.

He didn’t want to get into it. Not any further than he already had.

“I just can’t believe he wants to drive his Prius back and forth. I hate going in and out of the city enough when I’m in my SUV.” Baldr tossed his handful of socks into the top drawer of the dresser, waiting while Thor dropped his stack of clean underwear in before he shut it.

Crossing back to the closet, Thor dropped his bag on the floor of it before he shut that, too.

“Doesn’t surprise me. Trust Loki to make something that’s already difficult even more difficult for himself.” He said, hoping his tone made it obvious that was the last he would say on the subject of their brother.

To his credit, Baldr seemed to get the hint. He nodded, and slipped his hands into his khaki pockets.

“Well, since you’re unpacked... You want to get this over with? Or did you want to see mom, first? She and Loki are in the solarium. I left them to it, last I checked in they seemed to be having a pretty heated argument.”

Thor didn’t want to see Loki. Not yet.

“Let’s leave them to it.” He said, quietly. “Is he awake?”

“Has been for hours.” Baldr said with a smile. “He’s not letting something like this slow him down, even though he’s supposed to be giving it a shot.”

Thor nodded, and waved towards the bedroom door.

“Let’s go say hi to dad.”

Odin Borson was what all the articles written about him had called a ‘self-made man’. He had come from what was already a hard-working and modestly prosperous family, and had taken it that much further. The Nine Realms Enterprise Group had come up under him, having inherited Asgard Industries from his father, and incorporated so much more over the course of his career. He was known as a benevolent man, but nonetheless a firm leader, who expected a certain amount of success and a particular brand of loyalty from those who worked for him.

It had never been much different for his children.

That was one of the strongest memories Thor had of his father. While their mother was a warm, laughing, loving person, Odin’s affection came in bursts that were few and far between, especially as his sons got older. That wasn’t to say that Thor had _no_ good memories of his father. Much of what he’d learned about being a hard-worker and looking out for people had come from Odin, and Thor had inherited his love of fast cars. He had vivid memories of driving fast out on empty roads with his father in one of his many classic cars, the two of them talking and laughing, Odin only occasionally nitpicking the way Thor handled the car.

Even if they hadn’t always seen eye-to-eye, and perhaps their relationship had become strained as Thor had gotten older and wanted more than the business suit and skyscraper office, Odin _was_ his father. Thor loved him.

Standing outside the room he shared with Frigga, Thor reminded himself of that.

It wasn’t exactly hard.

Odin had suffered a heart attack last week. Non-fatal, thankfully, but frightening. For all of them. For his entire life, Odin had seemed unbreakable, unshakable. A pinnacle of health, and someone who would live a long, strong life. Sometimes, because that was the image his father gave off, Thor forgot just how old he was.

Baldr, while Odin and Frigga’s oldest, was not Odin’s first child. That was Hela, their half-sister, who Odin had fathered out of wedlock, with a girlfriend who didn’t want the corporate life Odin had promised himself to when his own father stepped down. She and Hela had lived in New Orleans all of Thor’s life, and he’d only met his half-sister a handful of times. Every time, she had been terrifying. Thor wasn’t sure if that was just her demeanour, or the fact that she was 13 years older than him.

What Hela represented, aside from a scary older sister, was Odin’s age. 10 years before he and Frigga had Baldr, Odin had already been a father. He’d been 23 at that time. 44 years had passed, and while that wasn’t so long, in the grand scheme of things, Odin was beginning to get close to 70. He was a handful of years past the age that most men retired.

Odin was getting old. A few months back, his doctors had seen fit to remind him, and thereby all of them, of this. They’d warned, if he didn’t slow down, if he didn’t change a few of the habits he had, something could happen. That was, unfortunately, the long and short of it, and the reason why, after so many years, Thor was back here, again.

Taking a breath, he knocked on the door, and then pushed the door open.

The room was dim, but not dark. The light-blocking curtains had been opened, and sunlight was coming in through the gauzy white drapes over the glass. The window had been opened, too, and was blowing through the room, keeping it nice and cool. On one side of the room, a large television was mounted on the wall, and had moved from morning news to morning talk shows. Opposite was the imposing, California king-sized bed, with its dark cherry wood headrest reaching high above the mattress, and pillows piled carefully to prop up its one occupant.

Odin didn’t look _terrible_, considering what had happened to him the week before. Likely, he was still being somewhat active. Getting his physical activity to a point beyond what it had been at before the attack was slow-going, his mother had told him over the phone. He’d only gotten home from the hospital a few days before, and she wasn’t going to rush him. It was time that he rest, recuperate, slow down, and, hopefully, retire. Forcing him to join a speed-walking club for retired millionaires would come in time, but she wasn’t in a rush.

Still, despite what had happened, Odin’s thick, white hair was brushed and clean, tied back from his face in a small ponytail. It had never mattered what others thought of him, Odin Borson had always worn his hair long. That, Thor thought, was where he, admittedly, had gotten his love of his own long hair from, before he’d finally decided to cut it short. His beard was trimmed, and he looked, truly, as though he’d never been in hospital at all.

This was part of the reason why Thor had such a difficult time aligning an Odin who was aging with the man he knew as his father.

Before either of them could get a word out, there was a snuffling sound from across the room, and in seconds, a dog with perked ears, and a wagging tail came trotting Thor’s way.

“I _wondered_ where you were!” Thor said, dropping the air of propriety immediately as he dropped to his knees to greet the dog. “Hey, girl. Hello, Mjolnir.”

The dog immediately cuddled in against his chest, her fluffy tail wagging as she leaned into him, and Thor had to laugh. The Norwegian Elkhound had long been the Borson family dog of choice, and Mjolnir, though she was older now, was very near and dear to Thor’s heart. He’d picked her out when they’d gone to choose their next dog, an honour he’d won by beating both Baldr and Loki in a race from the car to the door of the breeder’s home. He’d known her since she was a puppy, and having not seen her for years, he suddenly felt that absence, hugging her against his chest and burying his face in her soft, clean grey fur. For her part, Mjolnir didn’t seem like she was ready to ever let him go again, apparently having forgotten she was not a lapdog, and could not easily make herself at home in Thor’s lap.

“You say hello to the dog before you say hello to your father?”

Odin’s deep voice coming from the bed, from an angle where Thor could no longer see him, put a damper on things somewhat. For both Thor and the dog. At Odin’s voice, Mjolnir had calmed, and shifted off Thor a little, enough that he could get to his feet, brushing loose fur from his clothes. He made his way over to the chair by the bed, Mjolnir at his side.

“Sorry. She can be a bit distracting. How are you feeling?”

Odin huffed a small laugh, and gestured for Thor to come closer. “Don’t sit there like a nurse, give me a hug, boy. I nearly died, you know.”

Standing, Thor bent over to hug Odin. He even _smelled_ like he was simply taking a day off from work to lay around in bed watching daytime television. If he’d gotten up and showered this morning, he’d gone to a lot of work to seem like everything was normal. That was understandable, considering what had just happened.

“Don’t say it like that. I doubt mom likes it.”

Odin smiled as Thor sat down again.

“Your mother doesn’t like much about this situation right now. The hospital, the bedrest, my insistence that I’ll be fine and I can work from home – from _bed_, she would point out. This hasn’t been easy on her.”

Thor frowned. “It doesn’t seem like you’re making it easy, dad. You really are supposed to be resting. Have you thought about retiring?”

“Thought about it, yes.” Odin agreed, reaching out with the remote to turn off the television. He looked back at Thor, looking him over. “You cut your hair.”

“Uh, yeah. Wanted a change.”

“That’s good. How has New York been?”

This wasn’t at all the conversation Thor had been expecting. Instead of noting his mortality, and listening to the things that Thor was saying, Odin seemed as though this time stuck in bed was just going to be a bump on an otherwise smooth road. If he was truly considering going back to work – and working from home, right now – than retirement, and everything else that would come with it, like a break for his clearly overworked system, was unlikely in the near future.

“New York has been fine. I stay busy, obviously. That goes unsaid for what I do.”

It was best if Thor didn’t linger on this subject.

“You’re not really working from bed, are you?”

Odin sighed. “As much as I would like to be, no. Your mother put her foot down, there. Heimdall is perfectly capable of handling things, she said, and she’s right. I know he is, and I know, if things had gone worse than they did, he would have been perfectly fine in that role until Baldr or yourself stepped up and stepped into it.”

There it was.

Coming home was always nice, for the most part, but there was always this. The moment when his father reminded him of the future he’d always imagined for him. It was a future that Thor didn’t want, and wasn’t working towards any longer. He hadn’t been working towards it for years, and yet, that hadn’t stopped Odin. Against everything Thor had said and done, he still maintained that Thor would see the light of what it was he should be doing, and come back to the family fold, ready to do the things that were expected of him.

Him, or Baldr.

Hela, who had her own successful career as a funeral director, had stricken her name from the considerations long ago.

Loki, after everything, wasn’t really a consideration at all. Not unless something happened to get Baldr and Thor both out of his way, in Odin’s mind.

Thor didn’t want it. He never, really, had. Not since he’d been old enough to understand what his father did, and understand that he didn’t want it, and didn’t want a part in it. It didn’t interest him in the way the work he was doing in New York did. It had caused fights, in the past. Fights that had lasts hours, days, weeks. Months, really, in the end. There would be times Thor would call and either he or Odin would refuse to speak to the other, when Frigga tried to pass the phone along.

Since the doctors had given him their news, Odin had been pushing the succession question quite a lot more. Thor suspected that was why Baldr had given up hiding his greys. The stress was going to do the same to him, if he wasn’t careful.

“Dad, you know...”

Odin frowned, and even if he was in his sleep clothes, and laying in bed, he looked formidable, a force to be reckoned with, when he did.

“Thor, I don’t want to hear it. I know that you think what you’re doing in New York is going to be forever, but I just don’t see it. It’s hard to have longevity in that kind of work.”

Even if it was an argument Thor hadn’t wanted to have, he couldn’t help himself. He gaped at Odin for a second, and then asked, quietly, “exactly what is it about _firefighting_ that isn’t going to make it something that’s around for a while? Do... do you legitimately think that fires are just going to stop happening?”

There was an edge in Thor’s voice that he, himself, took as a warning.

His father had just had a heart attack. They’d been speaking with each other for barely five minutes. This wasn’t something he needed to get into, right now.

“I don’t want to argue about it, dad, okay?” Thor continued, talking over Odin, who had opened his mouth to continue. “That’s not why I drove all this way. I didn’t come out here to go over the succession plan with you, again, for the five hundredth time. I’m here because I was worried about you, and I want to make sure you’re doing all right and in fair enough health.”

The smile Odin gave him was cold, almost mocking.

“You’re here because your mother asked. You’re here for the same reason as Loki. You want to know what’s coming in the Will.”

Those words were like a slap across the face.

No matter the disagreements Thor and his father had been through in the past, the truth remained the truth: Odin was his father, and Thor loved him. He had come all this way, driven for days, to make sure that his father was all right, and to help, if he could. He’d been away from home for too damn long, and he hadn’t wanted to stay away now that something had happened. If something worse were to come along, he didn’t like knowing that he hadn’t come back and told his father, face to face, that he loved him, that he cared about him, and he was proud to be his son.

Maybe it was the brush with death. Maybe it was the fact that Odin was _bitter _about all the years Thor had spent away.

Whatever it was, Odin wasn’t making it easy for Thor to stay in this room and do the things he had come here to do.

“That’s not why I’m here.” Thor started, quietly. “That is, yes, part of what I expect us to get done while we are all here. Not because I asked for it, but because it has to get done, and after this scare, mom wants to make sure it is. She doesn’t want you to leave with anything undone, because that’s not the person you are. Clearly. You’re trying not to leave anything undone right now, while you’re supposed to be in bed.

“I’m here because you’re my father, and I give a shit. I didn’t want the last thing we ever said to each other be over the phone, from other sides of the country. I certainly don’t want the last things we ever say to each other to be the same old words we’ve been saying for years. Even if you’ve added some nasty new verses to the song.”

Odin was silent, looking Thor over with an unreadable expression.

“I know you don’t like what I’ve chosen as a career, because it gets in the way of what you want me to do. But, for once, can we please see each other and accept that this is just how things are?”

Thor finished speaking, and the silence stretched between them for what felt like an hour. The clock on the wall ticked, the television flicked from daytime talk show to commercials, and finally, Odin cleared his throat.

“I’ll admit, maybe I was a bit harsh. I don’t understand why you and your brother insist on throwing away everything I built for you.”

Thor sighed, and put his face in his hands. Odin wasn’t listening.

“I don’t understand why you went to school for astronomy, got a minor in linguistics, and then decided the job for you was something like firefighting. I don’t understand what Loki does at all. Baldr, at least, has a good head on his shoulders, and is already working with the company, has a family. He’s looking towards the future and building one for himself and Karnilla, and I just _wish_ that you would try and do the same.”

Pulling his face back from his hands, Thor sat back in the chair. Next to him, Mjolnir took that as an opportunity to put her head in his lap, and automatically Thor’s hand fell, scratching behind her ears.

“Who were the first ones here, when mom called 9-11?”

Odin rolled his eyes.

“Thor--”

“--No, I’m serious. _Who_ were the first ones here, when you had your heart attack, and mom called 9-11?”

The silence this time only lasted a few heartbeats.

“The firefighters.”

Thor nodded, standing up. Mjolnir stood, herself, backing up a few paces and shaking her head so her ears flapped and the tags on her collar jingled.

“The firefighters. _That_ is why I choose to do what I do for a career, dad.” Thor headed towards the door, Mjolnir having abandoned her position at Odin’s bedside to follow him. “I’ll be back later, once you’ve had a nap. You’re in a shit mood.”


	2. Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor continues to reconnect with his family. _All_ of his family. It doesn't go well, but, as a good friend reminds him, that's not reason enough to give up. Something needs to give.

Thor wasn’t a glutton for punishment. He never really had been. The conversation with Odin had left him steaming and angry, though, and rather than go and cool down by taking a shower, or something like that, Thor had headed to the next likely location for him to get in a fight.

Their mother’s solarium, where she and Loki had been, apparently, arguing themselves.

That, at least, had been what Baldr had said. If Thor knew Baldr, he’d seen the solarium door shut, seen Loki hand-talking passionate on the other side of the glass, and decided that what was happening was an argument, and he wanted absolutely no part in it.

But, Thor did.

At least, he may have, but when he approached the solarium, it had been empty. Whatever Loki and Frigga had been discussing, they had clearly finished, and both gone off to find other things to do.

The solarium was a big, beautiful room that Thor had truly fond memories of. Frigga had changed it, a bit, in the years he’d been gone. She’d swapped furniture, rearranged how things were set up and, most striking of all, she had added many, _many_ more plants. There were small ones, colourful ones and ones that reached towards the glass ceiling, making the sunlight coming through dapple and turn green. It was warm, but not stifling yet, and Thor took note that she’d had little fans installed around the sitting area. Anything to make this spot, one she loved so much, as comfortable as possible.

It was because of the solarium’s thick, clear glass walls that Thor was able to see where his mother was so much easier, though. Instead of walking around the house, looking for her and possibly getting into another argument with the other person he had not seen yet as a consequence, he was able to walk to the far side of the solarium and leave by the door, crossing the yard towards the small pond, Mjolnir bounding ahead of him.

Odin was a tall man, but broad. Thor was taller than him, Baldr, and Loki, but they all towered over their mother, Frigga Borson.

That was probably impressive, because their mother wasn’t terribly small. She was average height, slim, with long golden hair that she often wore in difficult looking piles on her head. Thor had watched her do it, multiple times as a boy, and he was always amazed at the fact that it only look her a minute to make her waves of hair look presentable, or at least be out of her way while she dealt with her three sons.

Today, her hair was pulled back into a bun that had loose tendrils escaping from it, here and there, falling down her back onto the simple, flowing dress she was wearing.

His mother had always been the most beautiful woman he’d ever known, and even with the stress Thor knew her to be under, right now, she was nothing but regal. Whereas his memories with Odin were tinged with both good and bad, Frigga had always been a constant source of good in his life. Supportive, loving, teaching. She didn’t let her boys get away with murder, but she certainly didn’t question them, or their worth as career men, the way Odin had just done upstairs.

Mjolnir reached Frigga first, and her laugh reached Thor’s ears as he strolled across the lawn, hands in the pockets of his jeans. The back pond was home to a lot of different wildlife. Nothing terribly exotic, of course. Some fish, some frogs, and then there were the birds that made their nests in the trees that dotted its shoreline. Frigga was sitting under one of them, on a white bench that had once sat in the solarium, when she was first working out how she wanted it to look. Mjolnir was sitting in front of her, now, perfectly pleased while Frigga rubbed her ears, and looked back at Thor crossing towards her.

“You cut your hair.” She said, smiling and shifting on the bench. She wasn’t taking up much room, but it made it easier, when Thor sat down, for her to reach over and hug him tight, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “It looks good. Very grown up. Probably much easier to fit under your helmet, hm?”

Thor laughed as they pulled apart. “The way you talk about what I do for a living is refreshing.”

“Ah. You’ve been to see your father.” There was no judgment in Frigga’s tone, only a spark in her eyes and the tilt of her smirk that let Thor knew she had an idea of what had gone on in that room between the two of them. “You mustn’t hold on to what he said. He’s been in a terrible mood on and off ever since...”

She didn’t name the event, and Thor didn’t need her to. He nodded, and draped his arm across the bench behind her. Across the pond, a pair of ducks were swimming in slow, lazy circles, and as he watched, one of them dipped its head under the surface.

“I get it. It’s why I just walked away, instead of getting into a fight with him.”

Frigga smiled. “You did better than Loki, then.”

That wasn’t entirely surprising. If Thor and Odin had a tumultuous relationship, the one that his youngest brother had with Odin was explosive at best. That had been part of the reason why Thor was so surprised to hear Loki was living so close by, in Los Angeles. It had also been part of the reason why a bit of him hadn’t been all that surprised to find out Loki didn’t plan to stay nights in the house. Staying more time than was strictly necessarily would likely lead to a fight between himself and Odin in no time, and Loki, for all his flaws, loved Frigga too much to put that on her, after everything she’d been through in the last week.

“Not hard to do.” Thor commented, and left it at that. He didn’t want to talk about Loki. “How are you holding up?”

Frigga sighed, not one of exhaustion, but one of, almost, amusement. “Better. Better than I was a week ago, for sure, and better every day. He’s being stubborn as a mule, so I know he’s getting back to himself, which is all I can _truly_ ask for. I just wish he would listen to me when I tell him to stop working from home.”

“He said Heimdall is running things right now?”

“Yes,” Frigga nodded. “Heimdall, and your Uncle Tyr. He’ll be coming by for the day tomorrow, by the way.”

Thor nodded. If Odin had become a father to his boys past the age of 30, it was nothing compared to Thor’s grandfather. There were 15 years between his uncle and Odin. Tyr was barely into his 50s, and had only been 21 when Thor had been born. There wasn’t much of an age gap between him and Odin’s sons, so they’d grown up fairly close.

“So then... why isn’t dad just letting them take care of everything?”

“Because your father is an ass who will probably still be video conferencing the board room when he’s on his death bed.” The words seemed to have come out of Frigga in a burst that even she hadn’t been expecting. She’d pressed a hand to her mouth after speaking, and it was a beat before she muttered, “excuse me.”

“No.” Thor said, firmly. “You’re right. And I’m so sorry you’ve had to fight with him about this on your own.” Bringing his arm off the top of the bench, Thor pulled his mother into his side in a one-armed hug. She went willingly, and though Thor wasn’t naive enough to think that his brothers _hadn’t_ checked on her like this, it was obvious that she needed their support just as much as Odin. Maybe even more.

“I did sign up for this when I married him. I knew what he was. Ambitious, hard-working, driven. A workaholic. I just hoped, when he got older, he would let it go, a little. Relax, let everyone else do the work, and try and enjoy a well-earned retirement with me.” She looked up at Thor, and though she was smiling, he could see the upset in her eyes. “He’s had a heart attack, and he’s not slowing down. Not enough, at least.”

Thor had always known his parents to be strong people. His father was the most formidable man he knew, and his mother had been the epitome of a queen in all the ways the storybooks said. As he’d gotten older, though, he’d realized they were human, just like him. Odin could have a heart attack. Frigga could stay silent with tears on her face while she sat at the pond with her second son. It was their job, as their sons, to help where they could.

“Well, we’re here now. All of us.” Thor said, quietly, after Frigga had run her hands under her eyes. “You don’t need to argue with him alone. God knows, the three of us inherited enough of his stubbornness to go toe-to-toe with him, and maybe come out on top, with his retirement plan in hand and a nice deed on a new yacht for your free summers all drawn up.”

That made Frigga laugh, again. Mjolnir had curled up next to her feet, the ducks in the pond were still doing their laps, and distantly, Thor could hear the sound of someone driving past the house, quickly. The sun was shining and his mother was laughing. No matter what had brought him here, he would do what he could to make sure she could still laugh a little when he was gone.

The house was big. It had seemed bigger when he was a child, but it was still an impressive size. It took a while to walk from one side of it to the other and it was still possible to get a little turned around if you didn’t know exactly where a certain room was. It was thanks to that, that Thor had let himself fall into a false sense off security.

After talking to Frigga, he’d come inside with her and left while she’d been making some lunch. As nice as the drive had been, Thor had _still_ been sitting in his car overnight for the last stretch of it, and he wanted nothing more than the chance to shower and get into some fresh clothes. Baldr had been in Odin’s study, talking to Heimdall on the phone, and Odin’s bedroom door was closed. It wasn’t like anyone needed him, or was looking for him, so Thor had taken the chance, gotten a fresh pair of jeans and an old Rangers t-shirt that he’d cut the sleeves off of out of his room, along with a change of underwear and socks and his bag of toiletries, and locked himself in the bathroom.

_This_ he had missed.

It wasn’t that his place in New York wasn’t nice, but when you grew up used to a house full of full size, opulent bathrooms, it didn’t quite compare. It was because of that he spent longer than he probably had needed to under the hot jet, letting the water pour off him onto the stone floor while he breathed in the hot steam that was building up around him, behind the glass door. It meant that, once he finally got out of the shower, towelled off, redressed, and combed his hair into a style he could handle it drying in, the bathroom was a foggy mess. When he opened the door, steam poured into the hallway, illuminated by the warm light Thor hadn’t turned off yet.

He almost wished he’d paused to turn off the light before he’d opened the door. Spent a little more time brushing his teeth, considered putting product in his hair. Anything that would have bought him a few more seconds for the person who was standing outside the bathroom door to have moved on.

It wasn’t like Loki was _directly_ standing there. He hadn’t been waiting for Thor to get out of the shower. Probably. It looked like he’d been moving down the hallway, and only paused because he didn’t _know_ who was getting out of the shower.

Loki was the only living being in the house that Thor hadn’t seen yet, and, judging by the look on his little brother’s face, they likely both would have been happier for it to stay that way.

But, now that they had spotted each other, clearly they needed to say _something_. Or, rather, Loki did. Thor had put his dirty clothes into the hamper, was was working on moving past Loki, ready to go back to his room or, better yet, downstairs to a neutral space, anywhere Frigga was. Frigga wouldn’t let things get to a head between them.

He’d barely stepped out of the bathroom, though, when Loki was opening his mouth.

“You cut off all your hair, and you still manage to take showers long enough to waste all the hot water and cause a damn drought.”

Thor didn’t need to acknowledge him. He could easily have kept moving, eyes averted, and pretended he hadn’t seen or heard Loki at all.

That, however, would only make things worse, and Thor knew it.

“I’m fairly sure the only one who ever drained the hot water was _you_, actually.” He said, keeping his tone conversation while he looked back at Loki.

His younger brother had definitely changed since the last time Thor had seen him, but even so, he would have known him by the green eyes, framed by dark lashes. Loki’s eyes had always been his most striking feature and, if Thor wasn’t mistaken, he’d found ways to emphasize that, by wearing mascara. That was something Loki had toyed with when they were younger, sneaking off to the drug store to buy little pink and green tubes, applying it behind his locked bedroom door and coming out with his lashes darkened, lengthened, and sometimes, when the tube had been hidden in his room for a while, a little clumpy. Their father had never approved, but that clearly hadn’t stopped Loki.

That, Thor thought, wasn’t the only thing about Loki’s appearance that Odin didn’t approve of, anymore.

The last time he’d seen his brother, Loki’s hair had been a bit long, nearly reaching his shoulders. He’d been wearing it swept back, run through with so much product Thor had been sure even the Santa Ana winds wouldn’t have moved it. Now, his hair wasn’t any longer than that, but he wasn’t sweeping it back any more. There was also less of it, the side shaved down to velvet, the rest of his black hair straightened within an inch of its normally curly life, and swept over the other side of his face. It was an edgy look, completed by the ring through his septum and the black polish on his fingernails. All of it, together with the attitude Loki emanated, truly gave off an air that warned people to stay away. Keep their distance, and they might get away with their life.

Thor had never been scared off by that air before. He wasn’t about to start now.

“Did you want something, Loki? I was going to go help mom, find out what needs done.”

Loki folded his arms over his chest, and shook his head so his hair moved out of his face. “I suppose you do have time to make up. I noticed you managed to get here last. Something keep you? Or keep you from wanting to come back?”

There was a challenge in Loki’s words that Thor knew better than to rise to, but he couldn’t help it. It had been years since he’d had a civil conversation with Loki. He suspected he didn’t know how to, anymore.

“Yeah, my job, Loki. You know, the one where I save lives? The one in New York? Almost 3000 miles away? Yeah, it took me a bit to get here, but I got here and I intend to stay and do what I can to help. It’s more than I can say for you.”

Loki’s eyes flashed, and Thor knew he shouldn’t push things further.

“From what I heard, you just keep driving out here every day to make things difficult for everyone. Arguing with mom, fighting with dad, treating Baldr like he isn’t worth acknowledging. And then you drive back, to continue doing _I don’t know what_. Not working, I assume, which makes me wonder how you’re affording the gas, but you always had your ways of getting what you wanted, didn’t you?”

Those were cold words. Calculated, and meant to stab at Loki exactly where he was sore. Thor turned, ready to walk away, and leave it at that. He had the last word, and Loki would be left steaming, but at least they hadn’t had an actual argument.

Thor didn’t even reach the top of the stairs before he heard Loki’s footsteps, quick behind him.

“I am working, not that you ever bother to check up on anyone here, so I don’t know why you care to ask. I’m doing really well, actually.” He hissed, walking next to Thor, moving so he was a little ahead of him. He stepped out and blocked Thor’s path, and if Thor hadn’t been expecting it, he probably would have run into him. As it was, he pulled up short, hoping he was giving Loki a cool look when he met his eyes.

“So, don’t worry about the gas money I’m spending, driving in and out of the city every day. It’s a small price to pay to not have to sleep under the same roof as _you_.”

Loki turned, and headed down the stairs. He didn’t look back once he hit the landing, and he didn’t pause before he crossed the foyer, opened the front door, and slammed it behind him. It was loud, echoing around the open entryway, and Thor wasn’t surprised when Baldr appeared from the den a few seconds later.

He looked from the front door, to Thor, standing at the top of the stairs, and Thor could see him putting two and two together.

“Loki?” he asked.

Thor nodded, willing the storm of anger and hurt inside him to subside.

“I’m going to go help mom with lunch.”

“So, it’s not going well, is what you’re saying.”

Thor sighed, and rolled onto his back to stare at the ceiling of his bedroom, rather than the wall, his cell phone still resting on the pillow next to his head, speakerphone running.

The rest of the day hadn’t been _terrible_, he would admit to that. He’d helped his mother with lunch, which everyone had taken separately, and then he and Baldr had gone down to the crawlspace to clean up some of their old things. If they were here, they might as well do it together.

Loki hadn’t come with them. He’d disappeared at some point after lunch, and when Baldr had gone to check and see if he was outside, he’d come back to report Loki’s Prius was gone. Whenever he was, he wasn’t at the house, and he hadn’t come back that day.

It was probably for the best. Cleaning the crawlspace had been a job and a half, and it would have been made all the more stressful had Loki been there. It was bad enough that Thor needed to share the space with Baldr, hunched over to move so he wouldn’t hit his head. It wouldn’t have been a good place for the three of them to be trapped together, with the memories of childhood and their teen years packed into boxes around them.

At one point, Thor had found a photo from his third year in college. He was standing in his dorm, and next to him stood Loki. Loki, lanky, with his hair wavy from the summer humidity, standing next to him, smiling almost shyly, a freshman himself, but not at this college. He’d gone to one further up the coast. Fallen in love with the climate and culture there. It was probably why, after everything, he’d ended up living in Seattle for a while.

The picture had brought up memories like that one, and others that Thor didn’t want to confront with Baldr cursing next to him, having just whacked his head on a beam. It had been better that Loki wasn’t there. It would have made things worse.

Dinner had been a quiet affair. Odin had joined them, but the conversation had been dry. Mostly, Frigga had been recounting the things she and the boys had done that day, and asked how Odin was feeling. His answers had been kept short, and Thor couldn’t help but feel like his lack of a personality at the table was because of the argument Thor had started with him earlier, and left before truly finishing.

Now, with the dinner dishes done and put away, and the house quiet, Thor had retreated to his room. It was the one safe place in this entire house where he didn’t need to worry about anyone interrupting him without a damn good reason. Especially not when both of his parents were going to sleep shortly, and Baldr had already left to get back to his wife. Thor’s only real company was curled up next to him on the bed, her nose under one big paw as she dozed.

“I would say not.” Thor answered, deadpan, and on the other end of the line, Carol laughed.

“Don’t sound so put out about it.” Val, Carol’s girlfriend and Thor’s long-time friend, responded. Thor could almost picture the two of them, now. He’d called to talk to Val, because she knew a good chunk of the story that surrounded Thor’s uneasiness about coming home, but he’d gotten lucky, and they’d both been home.

Of everyone Thor could have called, they were the best option. He had friends here, of course. People who, like Val, he’d grown up with and, unlike Val, they hadn’t moved nearly as far away. Making the call to Colorado right now was just easier than calling up any of his old buddies, and starting with ‘hey, I know I didn’t let you know I was coming to town, but I’m here, and my family’s pissing me off, can I vent?’

“It’s only been a day. Everyone’s kind of tense, right? Your dad went through something pretty dramatic, and it could have turned out a lot worse than it did. I’m sure everyone just needs to get their footing before you all stop letting your anger out on each other.”

“Oh, you don’t know his brother.” Val filled in, responding to Carol on Thor’s behalf. He appreciated it. “Loki is this... dramatic, vindictive little asshole. Sometimes. Not all the time, but most of the time since he went to college. Wouldn’t you say, Thor?”

“Yeah, about that long,” Thor replied, staring at the ceiling. Yes, it had definitely been since Loki was in college. In his second year, in fact. Val had been there, the day Thor was leaving the west coast, when Loki had slammed the door in Thor’s face, his own boxes packed but nowhere near ready to go.

Thor had beat him to it. He suspected that had always pissed Loki off a little.

Along with everything else.

“Well... I got nothing then.” Even over the phone, Thor could imagine the sarcastic shrug Carol was giving. It made him smile. “Being an asshole runs in the family, I guess?”

“You calling me an asshole?” Thor asked, laughing quietly, eyebrows raised.

“Not you, though, _yes_, you can be.” Carol retorted. “No. Your dad. Giving you shit about being a firefighter instead of some desk jockey. Can’t he just be proud of you?”

It was Val’s turn to laugh. “I’m sorry, weren’t you just the one who was telling him to give everyone a break because emotions are running high?”

There was a pause, and the _clunk_ of a beer bottle touching a table top. “Yeah, I decided to forget that approach.”

Thor smiled. It didn’t matter what had happened today, this _was_ making him feel better. Getting to talk to friends, people largely disconnected from the issues at hand, was refreshing. He didn’t have to worry about tiptoeing around them, or wondering if they were about to explode on him for something years in the past.

“Well, assholes or not, I am stuck here until we get things sorted. And dad gets on his feet again.” Next to him, Mjolnir lifted her head and yawned, before shifting so she was stretched out on her side. She let out a big sigh and Thor ran his hand down her side, an action to settle her as much as it was to settle him. “And I’d rather not make things harder on my mother, so I either need to bite my tongue, or try and make peace. At least with dad. He might see things a little more clearly the longer I’m here, and if we can actually talk about it.”

Val made a noise of agreement on the other end of the phone. “And Loki?”

“What about him?”

The response was so quick and, admittedly, bitter that Thor was a little shocked at himself. He wasn’t usually so open about his annoyances with his younger brother, and the silence that stretched on the other end of the line for the count of five entire seconds made it known that the other two were thinking the same. He could picture them now, sitting on their couch, beer bottles in hand, Val’s phone on speaker between them as they shared a significant look.

“The issue is that I _can’t_ talk to Loki. Neither of us have anything nice to say to the other. We haven’t since we were in school.”

“Not that either of you have really _tried_,” Val pointed out.

Thor snorted. “You’re both welcome to come to California and watch what happens when I _try_ to talk to him.”

“Can’t, got work.” Carol said, and there was another pause, presumably while she took another drink. “But, I think Val has a point.”

“Thanks, babe.”

“Anytime, honey.”

Thor groaned. “Don’t do that team-up on me thing that you do.”

He could hear Val’s grin when she replied, “why not? It’s fun.”

“I’ll end the call.”

“Your loss.”

The two of them laughed and, even if he was a little annoyed, Thor couldn’t help but smile. Val had gone through some real rough patches in her life, Carol too. It was nice to see and hear them like this, together, happy, supportive. He always felt bad for interrupting their night with his family drama, but he knew they’d both insist they didn’t mind.

“Seriously, though. You’re already there, already planning on trying to at least prop up the bridge you and your father have. What’s the harm in adding Loki to your to-do list?”

Thor swallowed, his eyes tracing the lines of the shadows on the ceiling.

“You’re with your family, and you haven’t been for a long time. You know that. They know that. Hell, _I _know that. This is the time to do what you can to mend the bridges you all set fire to however long ago. It’s been years. The fire must nearly be out by now.”

Val had a point. Thor knew that she did.

He was already home, and he wouldn’t have anything else to do. There was no denying that being at constant odds with Loki was decidedly worse than at least trying to restore some kind of civility between them. If, at least, for their mother’s sake, and the sake of their father’s health.

“You have a point.”

“I know I do.” Val’s voice was a little smug, but she’d earned it. “Now, not to be an asshole myself, but we have to get to bed soon. Someone’s test flying in the morning.”

“But!” Carol cut in. “You better let us know how it goes. No copping out. You have a chance to try and fix things, even if it’s just a little. You’d be stupid not to take it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! The next chapter will be posted in a few days!
> 
> Come yell at me about Thorki (and other assorted nonsense) on [Twitter](http://twitter.com/slamncram)!


	3. Bridges

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This has been Loki's no good, awful, very bad week. Thor coming home just made it worse. It doesn't help that no one else seems to see it that way.

The last week had been utter hell, and Loki sincerely doubted it was going to get better any time soon.

Living in Los Angeles had been a choice he’d made for reasons he hadn’t ever shared with his family, and ones he probably never, ever would. It was the sort of thing that would cause a fight between himself and his father. Especially right now, that wasn’t something that Loki could risk. He loved his mother too much to put that weight on her shoulders, with everything else she was carrying.

And, Odin too. For all their differences and the way they enjoyed arguing with each other, when it came down to it, Loki knew that he loved him. It made it hard to stay aloof, right now, but that was what he needed to do.

Still, he knew it wasn’t doing him any favours. It may have even been adding to the stress that Frigga was feeling. He just couldn’t seem to keep himself from doing it.

The morning traffic had started early. Loki could hear the cars down on the street, racing to get to their jobs, to get their kids to school, to get wherever it was people in L.A. needed to get at 8 o’clock in the morning. Yesterday, Loki had been one of them, trapping out a beat on the steering wheel of his Prius while he sat in traffic, making his way out of the city to see how things were going on the homestead today. Yesterday had been the first day he’d forgotten to leave home with the ball of anxiety he’d been carrying since Baldr had said everyone would be coming home to work out the Estate.

If he’d noticed he’d forgotten it, he probably would’ve turned around and fought back through the traffic to hole up in his apartment for the rest of the day, and figure out a game plan later. He hadn’t, though, until he’d left the solarium and seen the Coronet in the ring driveway through the big bay windows of the house.

Thor had gotten home yesterday.

Loki was so caught up in thinking about it that when his phone vibrated on the table next to his bed, he felt his heartbeat skip, a hand flying up to cover his eyes.

He was jumpy.

He hated being jumpy.

The sound of his phone going off had been decent enough motivation, though, and finally, after laying in bed for close to an hour, going over viable excuses to _not_ get up and go to his parents’ house today, he knew he had to start. At least, with getting out of bed.

Swinging his legs over the edge of his mattress, Loki picked up his phone, still not looking at the message on the screen. The traffic was rumbling downstairs, which had to mean the light had gone red, and it changed over as he walked from his bedroom into the living area of the apartment, the engines on little shitbox cars revving over the quiet purrs from the expensive sports cars heading into the heart of the city.

Loki flicked on his coffee maker, and leaned back against the kitchen counter, pulling up the message that had finally gotten him out of bed.

> _I’m coming over right now. We’re going for coffee before   
Stephen has to get to the hospital. Get decent._

Immediately, Loki leaned forward and flicked the coffeemaker off again.

Today was already shaping up to be a show.

Not necessarily in a bad way. For one, he wasn’t on the road, headed to the home he’d grown up in. Not yet, in any case. For another, he wasn’t having to deal with Baldr’s contemplative silences, or Thor, period. The best he could hope for was a morning out for coffee, even if it meant rehashing everything that had gone on, the day before.

There wasn’t much to tell. Not really.

Not in any way Loki could truly share, in any case. Still, it didn’t stop him from doing what he’d been told, and _getting decent_. Decent, in this case, meant pulling on the jeans he’d left draped over the end of his bed all night, a t-shirt from his drawer, and his favourite hoodie. The sleeves were so long they fell over his black-nailed hands as he picked up his phone tuck it in his back pocket, just as the knock came at the door.

Wanda, once, had been almost shy about coming to his apartment. It was Loki’s first space that was, truly, his own, and she’d understood that, in her own way. It had meant that, before, she would knock and wait for the door to be answered. That was probably best when he’d been living in Seattle and she would drop by nearly unannounced. Now, years later, and with the two of them once again living in the same city, two seconds after she knocked, she strolled right in, her keys jingling in her hand, the one to Loki’s apartment cut on a key patterned with little black hearts.

“Oh, good, you’re actually decent.”

Wanda Maximoff. One of Loki’s best friends from high school, she’d known him long before he’d come back to Los Angeles, and she knew his family. Enough that Frigga tended to ask after her when she and Loki hadn’t spoken for a while. If anyone understood that Loki was under a certain kind of stress, it was her.

“You _told_ me to be decent,” Loki said, reaching up to tie his hair back in a quick bun. Next to Wanda, in her black tights and scarlet blazer, Loki didn’t look all that great. It didn’t really bother him, though. For Wanda, that look _was_ dressing down.

It wasn’t really Loki’s job to be the fashionista when going for coffee, anyway. Far too early in the morning.

“Yes, well, you’ve never been all that good at listening, have you? Come on, I don’t actually know what time the doctor needs to be in, I just know it’s somewhere in the next few hours.”

“In the next few hours? So we could be running behind him while he’s speed-walking to the hospital, trying not to spill coffee all over ourselves?” Loki asked, locking his apartment door behind the two of them and following Wanda to the stairs.

His apartment wasn’t anything _terribly_ glamorous. It was more than a bachelor suite, which was lucky, and the big windows in his living room and bedroom that overlooked the street were beautiful, flooding the apartment with light for a good chunk of the day. But, when it came down to it, his apartment was little more than a suite over a tailor’s shop, sandwiched between a board game cafe, and a new age store. Leaving his apartment meant he passed the only other suite – it was across the hall from his own, and overlooked the back parking lot, decidedly giving Loki the better view – before the short hallway ended in a shadowy staircase down to the cramped space that housed their small mailboxes and passed as a lobby, and out into the busy Los Angeles street.

It wasn’t glamorous, or anything like the sprawling home he’d grown up in, but it was Loki’s and that, truly, was the most important thing.

“We might end up doing that, yes,” Wanda answered, mimicking Loki and slipping large sunglasses onto her face as they hurried along the sidewalk, dodging other people, busy on their phones or in a rush to get where they needed to be. “But, from what you sent me yesterday, that’s the least you need.”

Right. Yesterday. When Loki had gotten home in something just short of a rage, and sent Wanda a text asking if she thought he could get away with fratricide or if it would add undo stress to his already frazzled mother.

“It’s fine. It’s not like it’s going to be forever. From what mom was saying, he’s already getting better, which means everything will go back to normal in another week or so. All I have to do is try not to spend too much time around there, just what’s necessary, and everything will be fine.”

“Mhmm.” Wanda hummed, tapping away on her phone and dodging oncoming foot traffic as she did. “What do you want to drink? I’ve got Stephen getting the breakfast croissants we like. You want your usual latte?”

Loki rolled his eyes, watching as Wanda swung herself around a man who was also engrossed in his phone. “Iced, but sure. Can you please look up before you take out someone?”

“It’s L.A., they’d probably just keep going after calling me a bitch, no harm, no foul,” Wanda shot back, but she did finish her text – presumably to Stephen – and tucked her phone in her blazer pocket, looking over at him. “Anyway, that sounds like a terrible idea to me.”

“I had a feeling you would say that.” Loki said, turning the corner with her. At the end of the block, they could just see Stephen Strange, the last member of their little trio from high school, staking out a prime table outside their favourite hole-in-the-wall coffee place. It looked like he’d just sat down, considering the look of relief and vague annoyance on his face as he pushed two paper bags and to-go cups towards the other side of the table.

Smirking, Loki called, “you did a wonderful job juggling all of that. Maybe you should quit the hospital and become a clown.”

Part-way through his sentence, Stephen had already been flipping him off without looking, subtle with his hand still on the glass-top table. That was normal, so commonplace that Loki had to laugh, pulling out one of the metal chairs as he and Wanda arrived and dropping into it. Wanda sat down with a touch more elegance, and pulled one of the paper bags closer to herself, unrolling the top of it and letting a waft of savoury steam out.

“You would know about the clown industry.” Stephen commented, almost deadpan, tearing his own paper bag down the center. Inside, there was a croissant, cut in half and stuffed with a fried egg, swiss cheese and roasted ham, and Loki knew that was exactly what he and Wanda would find in their own bags. Normally, he was all over breakfast food, but, this morning, with the reminders setting in his brain, he was a little slower to open up his breakfast, himself.

He wasn’t about to show that, though.

“I’m not a clown, darling.” He shot back, lifting his cup and taking a drink. Loki pushed his sunglasses up into his hair, smirking across the table at Stephen, who simply shrugged his shoulder and finished chewing.

“I used to wonder, when I looked at your face.”

“Let’s not take cheap shots,” Wanda interrupted, putting down her own cup. “We don’t have time for that. I think. I don’t actually know when your shift is supposed to start.” She said to Stephen, looking across the table at him.

“I have about an hour before I should start heading to the hospital.” He answered, taking another bite of his sandwich.

Of the three of them, Stephen had, certainly, gone for the most difficult career, in Loki’s opinion. He was an attending physician, which meant long hours and hard work, for what was, in Loki’s opinion, fairly decent pay. He certainly had the temperament for it. In high school, Stephen had been a bit petty, a bit selfish and uncaring at times, which had made it difficult, when he’d expressed his career ambitions, for Loki to see him succeeding.

However, that had been in high school. They had all been a little bit that way, when they were in high school, and Loki was self-aware enough to know that he could easily be the same, now, as a grown adult.

Stephen had turned things around though, and as a doctor, he was polite and compassionate. Maturity and a broader world view had made an impression on him, and paired with his ingenuity and skill in his field, it made him very good at what he did.

Wanda, for her part, worked for a firm that specialized in mediation, which, in Loki’s opinion, was a perfect fit for her. Wanda and her twin brother, Pietro, had grown up with their mother, constantly at odds with their father, who they still had a love-hate relationship with. Wanda had spent a lot of their teenage years trying to broker some kind of peace between all of them. Loki remembered having her over, the two of them sitting on his bed while she cried and vented to him about the frustrations of her family.

He’d understood. Perhaps not in the same way, but he’d understood. Just as he understood why doing what she’d chosen for a career had been a good move for her.

And in the same way he understood why she was so keen to have this conversation with him now, with Stephen there was a ‘neutral’ party.

In Loki’s mind, there was no way Stephen had ever once been a neutral party, but they were his oldest friends, and they were trying to help, in their own way. The least he could do was hear them out.

“That’s not so bad. So. Loki,” Wanda said, immediately getting into it, before Loki had even finished unwrapping his breakfast. “Want to fill Stephen in?”

Loki sighed, laying out the paper bag his sandwich had been in and setting it on top. “SparkNotes version? Dad’s getting better after his heart attack but he’s kind of being a prick, Baldr is being Baldr, mom is stressed, and, to top it all off, Thor got back yesterday, and we immediately had it out.”

Stephen lowered his coffee cup.

“Your father is recovering from a heart attack, your mother is trying to keep it all together, and the first thing you did was have one of your screaming matches with Thor?”

“I did _not_ have a screaming match with Thor!” Loki snapped, shooting a dirty look back at the woman who was passing them and looked round at him in shock. “We just... you know, took a few digs at each other.”

“I see.” Stephen took another bite of his sandwich.

While he was chewing, Wanda asked, “did you start it?”

Loki gave her a flat look. “That’s rude.”

Her eyebrow raised. “Well? Did you?”

Looking between her and Stephen, Loki saw that he was stuck. “Yes, but _he_ is the one who showed up late and deliberately avoided me.”

“Wow. He outright told you he was avoiding you?”

“I truly do not appreciate the sarcasm, Stephen.”

Wanda laughed, and Loki shook his head at the both of them, biting into his breakfast.

“I’m just saying, you two have a lot of bad blood, there. He really hurt you when he moved out, and I get that, but it’s been_ years_. You were still in college when that happened. And you’re kind of acting the way you did back then. I know you are, and I haven’t even been there.” Wanda pushed a lock of her thick, curly brown hair back behind her ear. “You’ve grown up, Loki. So has he. Don’t you think you should try and be adults about this?”

“I agree with Wanda,” Stephen started, holding up a finger when Loki rounded his glare on him. “Just, hear me out. Hear_ us_ out. You are adults now, both of you. You’re at a good place in your life, I assume he’s at a good place in his. What’s happened with your father is bad, but it’s about as good as could be expected for results. He’s still alive, and you_ all_ have a chance to try and at least partially bury the hatchet. I remember how you and Thor were. He was your best friend, even before us.”

“No jealousy, obviously,” Wanda cut in with a playful smile.

“Maybe you two won’t ever have that again, and that’s fine. You have very different lives.” Stephen’s look was meaningful, and Loki had to concede, with a little nod, that he had a point, at least there. “But, everything else is stable. For me, I would just want to clear the air. Not have to worry about it, all the time. Especially while your father is in recovery. I know you two don’t have the greatest relationship, but I think it would help him not to have that tension in the house.”

“It would at least really help your mother.” Wanda pointed out.

That was the point that she knew would get to him the most.

Loki hadn’t been Frigga and Odin’s biological son. They’d taken him in when he was two years old, his own mother having given him up, hoping for something better. If she knew what had happened to her baby, she probably would have been happy to know that everything had turned out fairly well, for him. Taken in by a wealthy family who had wanted another child, and known that they should be giving a deserving child a home, he had grown up with luxuries he never would have had, should he have stayed in the system.

He’d had a loving mother, a guiding father, and two fun older brothers who had been his best friends for the longer part of his life.

Particularly Thor. They’d been closer in age to each other, and they’d gotten along well. Baldr had been five years older than Loki, but there were only two years between himself and Thor, and they’d bonded. When Baldr had been busy with high school, they’d been pre-teens, without a care in the world, getting into trouble. As they’d gotten older, Thor had taught Loki how to drive (without permission, in the driveway, at two in the morning, but that hadn’t been important). He’d been Loki’s first human subject for his photography, and Loki had spent hours helping Thor work out constellations in the night sky, the two of them holed up in Frigga’s solarium, staring through the glass roof.

That had all collapsed, and thinking about it made Loki’s stomach turn in a way that had him putting his sandwich down and reaching for his drink.

Wanda had a point, in that making peace with Thor would be good for Frigga. She was tired of not being able to have her boys home for the holidays. She was tired of not having them home together at all, period. They weren’t getting any younger, Odin’s heart attack had shown that.

“It would be easier on you, too.” Stephen pointed out, finishing his breakfast. “You have to be there to discuss what’s going into the Will, that’s what you’re there for. Don’t you think it will be easier to be around your family if you aren’t contemplating fratricide every time you look at Thor?”

Loki’s gaze slid from him, to Wanda, who was carefully folding up her now-empty paper bag.

“You told him what I said, hm?”

Wanda looked up, meeting his eyes.

“Mediation works best if all or most of the parties are on the same page regarding what the issue at hand entails.” She responded, cool as ever, but there was a light in her eyes, a hint of mischief, and Loki _couldn’t_ be angry with her. It wasn’t like she’d betrayed his trust, at least.

“All right. Say, I do as you’re both suggesting, and I try to make peace with Thor,” Loki started, laying out the theoretical situation. “What if he simply refuses to make peace?”

“Then that’s on him,” Wanda answered, sitting back in her seat, crossing one leg over the other. “I’ll lose a lot of respect for him, but that would be on him.”

Stephen nodded, taking both his and Wanda’s crumbled paper bags from the table and standing. “I’d say the same. I know Thor can be stubborn, but he isn’t steadfastly difficult, if I’m remembering right. Are you going to finish that?”

He pointed at Loki’s sandwich, and when he nodded, Stephen turned around and headed for the cafe to get rid of their garbage.

“Are you at least going to try?” Wanda asked, leaning forward.

“Oh, I’ll try.” Loki said, picking up his breakfast. He really should eat something before heading out to his parents’. “No promises on a timeline, but I’ll give it a shot.”

“Thank you,” Wanda said, patting his arm before taking another sip of her coffee. Loki wasn’t sure what she was thanking him for, but he wasn’t going to question it. “And, just think. If everything goes well, maybe he could come out on Friday night.”

Loki had been opening his mouth to take another bite of his sandwich, but he stopped, feeling suddenly cold at the thought.

Thor. Coming out on Friday.

“No.” He said, finally. Wanda frowned, and Loki could see her disappointment, but on this, he wouldn’t budge. “Peace or no peace, Thor won’t be coming out on Friday. None of my family ever will.”

“Loki--”

“--_None_ of my family,” Loki repeated, crumpling up his paper bag. “Ever will.”

By the time Loki made it out to the house, the sun was high in the sky and it was coming up on lunch time. Realistically, he could have made it sooner. He should have. But, after breakfast, he and Wanda had walked with Stephen most of the way to the hospital. Then, Wanda had walked him home, carefully avoiding the subject of Thor, or Friday, or anything that could sound like she was putting Thor in their Friday plans. She’d left him at the stairs up to his apartment, saying she needed to get some errands done before meeting up with her brother, for lunch, but that it had been nice to see him this morning. She thought it had helped.

And she wanted to hear how things went.

Stephen had said much the same, but not in the exact, blunt way that Wanda had. They’d both been there when Thor and Loki’s relationship had fallen apart, blown up in the space of one long weekend. They’d seen the aftermath of Thor moving away, heading east with friends of his – trustfund genius, Tony, and Clint, who Loki had never liked – leaving Loki behind to move out on his own. They’d watched the way that had affected Loki, and they’d been there to help him fill in the hole Thor had left with whatever it took to make it stop echoing so loudly.

Sitting outside in the Prius, Loki let out a breath and tipped his head back against the seat.

They’d both had a point. For Frigga and Odin’s sake, maybe they had to try and be civil. Especially for Frigga’s. Loki’s relationship with Odin had been rocky for a year or two before everything had happened between himself and Thor, but Frigga had always been patient, had always loved him, never judged, never looked away from his tears or ignored his upset.

The least he could do was try to give her some peace.

The first step in trying to make peace with Thor was feeling good about how he approached it, though, and that hadn’t just meant that he needed to know what he was going to say. It meant he needed to feel damn good about himself while doing it.

He’d learned, over the years since he and Thor had fallen out, that the best armour, sometimes, was knowing you looked good. After Wanda had left him at the door, he’d gone up to his apartment and done a quick clean up, getting rid of the few dishes in the sink, and tidying up the random clothing and paraphernalia he’d left lying around. Then he’d jumped in the shower, shaved, washed and dried his hair, prettied himself up a little, and gone into his bedroom to get dressed.

This had been the challenge. He wanted to look good, but still respectable. That had translated to a pair of tight jeans with rips in the knees, and a light, loose green t-shirt. His dry hair still had some of its natural wave to it, which he knew would make Frigga happy. He _looked_ easy, put together and capable.

Now, sitting out in his car with the sun beating through the windshield, he needed to feel it.

This entire week had been hell. First, the shock of Odin’s heart attack, and the relief of him coming through it. Then, the news that they needed to go over the Will, after this scare. After that, there had been Frigga’s phone call, asking him if he would be able to make the time to come out. She knew he was very busy, but the more he could be at the house, the better, to help her out, and he hadn’t been able to refuse. She didn’t need to know he wasn’t all _that_ busy. Not during the daylight hours, anyway. Not with anything that he couldn’t, realistically, bring with him.

The cherry on top had been the news that Thor was coming, too.

Baldr, Loki could handle. His snippy little wife, Karnilla, could be annoying, but Loki could tolerate her. Heimdall, Odin’s second-in-command, Loki had grown up around, and considered family. He wasn’t _fond_ of his Uncle Tyr, but he could deal with him. Mjolnir was a damn dog, and even if she’d always seemed to prefer Thor, she had been sweet with Loki since he’d come back into the house a few days before. He and Odin had been keeping their discussions short, and everyone had been happier for it.

But Thor was different.

Thor had been his best friend. Had felt like the other half of his coin.

Now, Thor was a stranger Loki was terrified to try and get to know again, and who he didn’t want to let in.

But, for Frigga...

“Come on, bitch.” Loki muttered, looking himself in the eyes in the rearview mirror. “It’s just Thor, and you can handle Thor.”

As far as pep talks went, it wasn’t exactly his best, but it would do. Getting out of the car, Loki headed up to the house and opened the door, expecting silence.

“Oh, you’re finally here.”

Karnilla.

Loki could tolerate her, yes, but he’d been happy to hear Baldr say that Karnilla wouldn’t be able to get nearly the time off work that he had. _Baldr_ had the perks of working for Odin’s company. Karnilla, working for a contracting business, could hardly just step out for a week to help her husband work out his place in his father’s will.

It seemed she’d managed to swing today, though.

“I had plans this morning.” Loki replied with a tight smile. Civility. If he wanted to foster it with Thor, he should probably try by creating it with someone who meant less. His sister-in-law certainly fit that bill.

Especially with the way she was looking at him now. Karnilla wasn’t a very tall woman, but what she lacked in height, she made up for in absolutely emanating power. Her thick, dark hair was pulled back from her face in a tight ponytail, and she was wearing a button-down grey shirt tucked into her black pants, and the look on her face as she put her hands on her hips assured him there would be _no_ bullshit.

“Yeah, you did, Loki. You stormed out yesterday, I heard.”

Loki didn’t need this right now. He didn’t _want_ to start with this.

But if Karnilla wanted to start with him, who was he to step down?

“I didn’t storm out. I had things I needed to get done, I went home to get them done when it seemed nothing else needed to be done here.” That wasn’t, entirely, a lie. Loki had gone home, texted Wanda, and then thrown on the latest binge-worthy Netflix show to run in the background while he worked on things he’d needed to get done. He’d stayed up late into the evening working on those things, in fact, but he wasn’t about to discuss any of that with her. “What the hell do _you_ know about what plans I had this morning?”

Karnilla paused, like she was genuinely thinking about it, but Loki knew she wasn’t. She was rallying to throw something in his face, and, suddenly, he didn’t really want to deal with it.

Kicking off his shoes, he turned to head into the den, where she had just come from. At least, he assumed. Baldr seemed to have taken over their father’s study as his base of operations, and if Loki knew Karnilla, even the little bit that he did, that was where she had been, too. Of the two of his brothers currently in the house, Loki would gladly start with Baldr over Thor. Ease into the whole _civility_ thing.

“Your uncle is here. He’s been here since 8. Everyone has been waiting for _you_.”

Loki turned into the study and frowned to find it empty. Karnilla wasn’t far behind him.

“Are you listening to me?”

Loki glanced at her, and moved around her, going back out the way he’d came. Karnilla made a little sound, almost a growl, and Loki had to smirk to himself. At least he was annoying _her_ as much as she was annoying _him_.

“Yes, my uncle is here. That’s good, he hasn’t been here to talk to dad, yet. I’m sure they caught up.”

“That only took them an hour. We’ve all been waiting for _you_.”

“Listen,” Loki turned around, smiling down at Karnilla. Next to his brothers, Loki never really felt as tall as he was, so it was nice that, if she wanted to show Loki how displeased with him she was, Karnilla needed to scowl _up_ at him. “I’m actually _trying_ to find my brother right now, so you can either keep snapping at me like a pissed off min-pin, or you can help me find Baldr so I can write whatever wrong you’re saying I committed.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket, showing her the screen. “I’m not inclined to believe you, seeing as _no one_ tried to find out where I was or what was keeping me from helping with this very important matter, but, please. Do take me for my tongue lashing from your husband.”

Loki left out anything to imply that Baldr was so mild a person he didn’t think there would _be_ much of a scolding. He didn’t need to take things too far. As it was, Karnilla was already shaking her head, her eyes narrowed in annoyance and distrust before she snapped, “this way,” and turned on her heel, heading for the back of the house.

He followed her without question or comment, walking behind her through the solarium and out the back of the house, into the yard.

“Oh, I see, now. You just came in to take a piss and I was unlucky enough to come in when you were still in the house.”

Karnilla shot him a look that would have killed a lesser man, but Loki wasn’t paying her any attention, now.

Everyone was outside by the pond.

And, truly, it was _everyone_. It had been a long time since the family had been together this way. In fact, Loki wasn’t entirely sure when the last time he’d seen this was.

Clearly, Karnilla’s presence had helped with some of this. Even if she and Loki didn’t get along, there was a definite connection between her and Frigga, and their touch was all over the fact that everyone was outside, having lunch together. Odin had even come down from bed, and was sitting in the sun, dressed in proper clothes, looking much more alive and well than Loki had seen him since the heart attack. Mjolnir was laying on the ground by Thor’s side, but as he and Karnilla approached, she lifted her big head and let out a booming bark that had everyone turning to look their way.

Thor met his eyes, and as much as Loki wanted to glare, it was hard to do when his brother was _smiling_ at him.

It looked forced, in a way, but it was a still a smile, and Loki faltered to return it, quickly taking his eyes off the other when their uncle started talking.

“You made it! Bloody hell, boy, you think you could have hurried.”

“I didn’t know you were finally making your appearance today, Uncle Tyr,” Loki said, tipping his head slightly and putting on a sweet tone. “I might have reconsidered how early I got here if I’d known.”

“Loki, come here, love,” Frigga cut in, stopping an argument before it had started. “There’s still plenty of food left. Let’s all finish eating, and then we can get into business.”

Letting himself be coaxed, Loki joined his mother, sitting at her side on the large blanket they’d spread out on the grass. Someone, probably Thor or Baldr, had turned the white bench next to the pond around so it faced the house instead of the water, and Odin was sitting there, Frigga leaning back against the edge of the bench at his side. Karnilla took up the space on the bench on his father’s other side, and Baldr, sitting on the blanket next to her, reached up and touched her knee. She put her hand over his and smiled. Next to Loki was his uncle, which wasn’t the best, but Frigga’s interruption had reminded him that he was trying to be civil. Next to Tyr was Thor, sitting between himself and Baldr, and Mjolnir was laid out in the grass behind him.

It was quaint, and sweet, and a complete lie. Their family hadn’t been the picnic type for years.

Odin’s heart attack was changing more than simply Loki’s attitude towards being civil with Thor.

Whatever conversation had been happening before Loki arrived, it picked up again. Something about New York, and it seemed to be a conversation that everyone _except_ Odin had been involved with.

Or, now, Odin and Loki. He sat, quietly, cradling the plate of food that had been handed to him – finger sandwiches and a scoop of Frigga’s macaroni salad – and listened to everything, watching Odin’s reactions. If there was one thing that Loki knew Odin was annoyed with Thor for, it was that he’d thrown away his education. That was how things stood, in Odin’s eyes. Not just that, but he’d thrown away the education he had pursued as a replacement for the career he should have been aspiring to with the Nine Realms Enterprise Group.

Selfishly, and in spite of his annoyance towards Thor, Loki had _loved_ that. No, he wasn’t Odin’s natural-born son, but he’d never even once felt considered to be part of that legacy. Baldr, as the first-born, of course. Thor, as his golden boy, was never a question. But Loki?

Loki, his emotional adoptee child, prone to scheming and grudges? Loki would never have been in line for any position of power at Nine Realms.

The fact that Thor _had_ been, and had thrown that away to go to New York City and become a firefighter? That felt like karma, to Loki.

But, he would never say that.

“It’s no Los Angeles winter, don’t get me wrong,” Thor was saying. “But, it’s kind of nice. Seeing actual snow. _Big_ snowfall. The real stuff.”

“Not for me,” Tyr responded, shaking his head.

Frigga, on Loki’s left, was smiling. “Maybe we could come visit, for the holidays this year. I’d like that, I really would.”

Loki looked between the two of them, slow and subtle. He could see the way Thor was smiling at Frigga, the way she was smiling at him. Thor loved their mother, dearly. For her sake, he would likely do anything. Maybe, that included making being civil with Loki as painless as possible. If they could put it behind themselves, and go forward being emotionless, maybe things could get better.

The conversation continued, Frigga, Karnilla and Thor discussing the holidays. Odin stayed quiet. Baldr, Tyr and Loki ate their food. It didn’t seem like he’d missed much, and Loki was almost bored. Bored enough that he was considering asking Thor if they could go talk, just so he could feel like he was getting something done.

Mind made up, he set his plate down on the pile of dirtied ones by Karnilla’s foot, and leaned forward slightly, trying to catch Thor’s eye.

“All right, I think we’re fed and watered enough.”

Odin stood up, carefully, though not as slowly as Loki might have expected. He wasn’t sure why, but the heart attack had made his father seem old, fragile and slow. Seeing that the opposite was true gave him a weird sort of cognitive dissonance.

With him making his move to get up, everyone else seemed to decide to follow suit, standing and gathering things to take back up to the house. Odin made to help, and Karnilla grabbed his arm with a _tsk_ing sound.

“Come on, Odin, you and I can go back up to the house. They’ve got this.”

“I’m not _incapable_,” Odin argued, but it was half-hearted as he let Karnilla loop her arm through his and start leading him back up the lawn. Loki watched them go, wondering at that for a second before a bundle of cloth was pushed into his arms.

“Here, runt,” Tyr said, patting the wrapped up picnic blanket he’d just shoved at Loki. “Since you got here last, you can take this into the laundry room, get that started.”

Loki narrowed his eyes, but didn’t argue. There was no point to it.

“Come to the den when you’re done.” Frigga patted his arm, and then made to follow everyone else back up to the house. Loki did the same. There was no point, now, in trying to get Thor’s attention. Everyone would catch on, would try to see what was going on.

It was going to be hard enough to make peace with Thor with only the two of them present. The last thing Loki wanted was for an audience to occur.

They made their way in, through the solarium but, just before the door, Mjolnir wiggled her way between Thor’s leg and one of the potted ferns on the floor. In her excitement, the pot rocked and then, as Loki watched, it tipped over, not dumping, but spilling _some_ soil across the floor.

“Hey, girl, look out.” Thor scolded, and Mjolnir paused at the door back to the house, looking back in shame. Everyone else had gone on ahead, but Loki, who had been behind Thor, couldn’t get past without stepping over the stack of dirty plates Thor had been carrying. He’d set it down on the floor next to him, and bent down to carefully scoop the spilled soil back up, into the pot itself. He was nearly done cleaning it up, but Mjolnir was hovering like she might be scolded again.

Loki realized she wasn’t the only one. _He _was standing there, a bundle of blanket that smelled of fresh grass and sun in his arms, watching Thor brush dirt into his hands.

Neither of them were speaking, either, though Loki _knew_ Thor had to know he was standing there.

“Here.”

Crouching down, Loki dropped the blanket and scooped up some of the last of the soil, dumping it over the lip of the pot, back around the base of the fern.

“I’ve got it.” Thor said in a gruff voice, not looking up. Loki stared at him, warring with the twist in his chest, the beast of his annoyance and hurt scrambling to be let loose.

He couldn’t do that. Not only because he needed to _try_ to be civil before he allowed it out, but because they didn’t have time to fight. They were supposed to be going to discuss the Will.

Instead, Loki took a deep breath.

“We need to talk. Later. I’ll stick around for a bit, tonight, so we can do that, all right?”

Thor looked up, and when their eyes met, Loki _knew_ he was surprised. If he’d been in Thor’s place, he would have been, too. Loki had taken quick, easy shots at him the day before, the second he’d laid eyes on him. Now, he was asking to talk.

Well, not so much _asking_ as demanding, but it seemed that Thor could tell the difference. As Loki watched, he saw something like understanding come across his brother’s face, and then he nodded.

“That’s fine.”

No matter how annoyed Loki wanted to be with Thor, despite his promise to Wanda, he smiled, just a bit, and mimicked Thor’s baritone. “_That’s fine_. Good. Later, then.”

Standing up, Loki grabbed the blanket again and stepped around Thor, deciding the plates weren’t such a serious barrier anymore.

Looking back, he took in Thor’s back, still crouched to clean up the mess the dog had made. “You should probably hurry. I’m supposed to be the disappointment today, remember?”

“Just today?” Thor shot back, quickly, and the beast in Loki’s chest thrashed again. His lips were pulling back, an angry, snarling reply already rising in his throat when Thor continued with, “sorry. That was out of line. Just... go on, I’ll catch up, all right?”

Loki paused.

_That_ was almost civil.

He didn’t answer Thor, instead turning and heading for the laundry room. There was no discounting what had just happened, though.

Maybe this wouldn’t be so hard after all.

After dropping the blanket in the laundry room, Loki made his way to the den. It wasn’t a terribly small room, but, with the family in it, taking up every available piece of furniture except for the small, two-seater sofa, it looked it. Loki sat down on one side of the sofa and, a second later, Thor came into the room, looked around and resigned himself to the fact that the seat next to Loki was the only available one.

Loki noticed the way Frigga looked at them, watched how Thor didn’t full-on lean away from him, but he _did_ lean against the arm of the couch. For a few seconds, Loki could tell, Frigga was worried about a fight happening between them. It may have, but Loki wasn’t in the mood.

If this discussion went at all the way he was expecting, there would be enough fighting between the _family_, Thor and Loki wouldn’t have to provide.

“All right. So, now that we’re all here, I think it’s safe to get started.” Baldr said, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He looked around the room at each of them, in turn. “Hela has already let me know what she’d like to hear, can’t make it up for this sort of thing, but I’ll be talking to her later tonight, and I’ll be making her considerations known.”

Loki smirked. Knowing Hela, she was asking for a lot, just to be difficult. She and Odin had never truly gotten along.

“But, basically, what we’re going to _try_ to do here, is come to some semblance of a civil agreement over what dad has to give, what he _wants_ to give, and what we can all expect, rationally. Obviously, we anticipated some argument, so this wasn’t something we wanted to do in front of the lawyers.” Baldr continued.

“No one needs to see our dirty laundry except us.” Loki commented, and Baldr gestured his way.

“Loki hit it on the head. We can all tend to be... a little hot-headed and argumentative with each other. There’s no need to put that on display.”

Next to him, Karnilla was looking at her wedding ring, adjusting it on her hand with an eyebrow raised. Loki knew that look; she was putting in her agreement without speaking. For her part, Frigga had her hands folded in her lap, and Loki could see how tightly one was gripping the other, trying to keep herself from fidgeting.

“So... dad?”

Odin, sitting next to Frigga, cleared his throat.

“Obviously, there’s going to be a lot to come down to all of you, if and when something happens to me. The heart attack was a wake up call that I’m prepared to answer, and I’ve been thinking about what I want to happen when I’m gone for the last few days.” As he spoke, Baldr picked up a notepad that had been on the floor by his foot, pulled the pen from its spiral binding, and set it his own knee. “There are still some conversations I want to have with all of you before we finalize this, obviously. This isn’t going to be an easy process, because it never is.”

“Not with us.” Tyr muttered, and Odin chuckled.

“No. Not with us.”

He looked at Frigga, and she smiled back. In that smile, Loki could see the love he’d been seeing his entire life. His parents loved each other, in spite of everything. Talking about what might come to pass – namely, Odin dying – was clearly not something simple for Frigga to talk about. Yet, here she was, days after her husband’s heart attack, ready to discuss what would happen, should it happen again, worse, or should death creep up on him another way.

Loki had always admired her. He probably always would.

“So, one thing we have discussed, and I don’t think any of you will have an argument against it, is a portion of the estate going to charity and towards education.” She said, crossing her legs. There were a few scattered nods around the room, Loki among them. He’d expected as much. Odin and his mother had always been philanthropists of a sort. With his father being such a public figure for much of his life, Loki had expected that the community would assume there would be some kind of kick-back in the event of his death.

“What are you thinking?” Thor asked. “I just mean, in terms of what charities or educational avenues you’re going to take.”

That was a loaded question, in Loki’s eyes. Baldr had been the good son, studying business. Thor had studied astronomy and linguistics and then thrown it all away to be a firefighter. Loki had gone to an art college. It was almost guaranteed which of those areas of study Odin would be willing to throw money at. Thor asking to clarify though? Loki could almost respect such a ballsy move.

“Your father was thinking a business scholarship at the schools both yourself and Baldr attended.” Frigga answered. Loki felt his eyebrows go up. “We’re still discussing where your school might benefit directly from sponsorship from his estate, Loki.”

That addition had been quick, and if it had come from anyone else, Loki might have responded with venom. Because it was his mother, though, all he did was smile with a bounce of his eyebrows, and look down at the floor, watching the dog curl up next to Thor’s socked foot. Across the room, he could hear Baldr’s pen scratching across the paper. Ever the dutiful son.

“And, for the charity, that’s also not quite decided yet.”

“What about something for LGBT youth in the area?” The words were out of Loki’s mouth before he’d finished thinking about what he was saying. Every eye in the room was on him, and though he hadn’t _meant_ for it to be confrontational, it certainly felt that way, from the look he and Odin shared. “I’m just saying, they could really benefit. _I _got lucky, to have ended up with such loving, supportive parents.” Loki laid his hand on his own chest, ignoring the fact that it felt like Frigga was giving him a warning look. He didn’t _need_ to start a fight this early.

“There are plenty out there who don’t have that, though, or who are struggling in other ways. You know, homelessness and mental illness are generally higher, statistics-wise, in LGBT youth. It’s California, it would be entirely appropriate and celebrated if you did that.” He continued, shrugging. “Considering how two of us turned out, you have the G and the B in your immediate family. You have a connection.”

Next to him, Loki felt Thor stiffen, but he didn’t speak up. He didn’t warn Loki off what he was saying, either.

It was likely Odin also had a lot to say. Loki could tell from the way he was holding his gaze. He didn’t, though.

Frigga was the one to break the silence.

“It’s definitely a worthy consideration. Baldr, dear, could you please...?”

Baldr cleared his throat, and Loki looked his way, not moving his head, only his eyes. He met Baldr’s as the other answered, “I already wrote it down.”

“Loki_ did_ have a good point.”

The most surprising thing about those words were that they came out of Tyr’s mouth. Loki didn’t bother hiding his confused frown, looking his uncle over, like maybe he’d been replaced in the last five minutes.

“Donating to causes that support homelessness in general would be a good idea.” His uncle continued. “There’s a definite need for it.”

Baldr’s pen was moving again, and Loki nodded.

“There’s no reason you couldn’t donate to multiple charities, either.” Thor pointed out. “It’s not like the estate is significantly limited.”

And_ that_ was the most truthful thing of it all.

Odin had built an empire of sorts, and he’d done a damn good job of doing it. They lived_ well_ as a family, but they didn’t go to extremes, or do anything too extravagant. The house was huge and gorgeous, and Odin had always loved his cars, but they had never flaunted their wealth or made truly over the top decisions with it.

Hell, Loki was living in a flat above a seamstress shop.

There was no extravagant flaunting in their family.

And that meant that, when Odin passed, there would be a lot of wealth to spread around. Giving back to the community would be expected, yes, but it would be a good way for him to make his final mark.

“We already do donate to multiple charities, yes.” Frigga agreed. “If you all want to think about specific ones we can work with, in the event of your father’s passing, that would be great. Just get back to Baldr with those ideas, all right?”

Again, there were scattered nods through the room. Loki looked over at Thor, catching his eye for a second before looking away.

He didn’t _seem_ annoyed for being brought into Loki’s game of poking the bear. So far, they might not be the first ones to start a fight.

“We’re allocating a significant sum to go to the charity – or charities – and educational fund.” Odin said, picking up where Frigga had left off. “I also intend to leave a sizeable amount to your mother.” This, Loki thought, was obvious. “As well as the house.” Again, obvious. “You will _each_ get the same amount of money put into a fund for you. This is on top of the trust funds you already had. And when I say _each_, I do _mean_ each. That includes your uncle and sister.”

This was all the sort of thing that Loki had expected. The bulk would go to Frigga, and she would keep the house. They would all get the same amount of inheritance, including Hela and Tyr. He would donate to charities, and fund education.

None of this seemed like the sort of thing that Loki _needed_ to be here for. He could have been informed over the phone.

“I’ll also be setting aside a fund for my grandchild.”

At that, Loki frowned, looking up again and over at his father in confusion. He needn’t have, because across the room, Karnilla took Baldr’s hand, and the pair of them smiled at each other.

“What, you’re pregnant?”

Loki hadn’t meant for it to sound as thrown off and confused as it did, so he supposed he deserved the look Karnilla gave him.

“They told us this morning,” Thor said, quietly.

Baldr nodded, and Karnilla said, “you would have been here to hear it if you’d actually been on time.”

Loki couldn’t help it. He rolled his eyes. “Oh, I’m sorry I missed you making everything all about yourself. Congratulations, both of you. Baldr, I would prepare yourself for that one to be even worse than she--”

“--Loki!”

Frigga was looking at him sternly, and it was only the fact that she’d interjected that stopped Loki from finishing his thought. He adjusted his seat on the couch, not meeting anyone’s eyes.

He didn’t need to see Karnilla looking smug.

“If I can continue,” Odin started again. “For this grandchild, and any more that may come in the future. That’s for all of you, but it is _only_ for children. If you don’t have any, you won’t be able to access it. I think that’s fair.”

It was, of course, but Loki couldn’t help his annoyance. Yes, he always had the option of adopting, but he was what he was. He was gay. He wasn’t about to procreate easily at any point in the future.

At least, however, his nieces and nephews would be taken care of. _That_ was something he could be happy for, and even if he’d let Karnilla get his back up, he _was_ happy for her and Baldr. They would be good parents. And they’d seemed happy. He thought. It had been hard to tell through the air of smugness that had been coming off Karnilla when she’d informed him.

“Who’s going to get Mjolnir?”

Of all people, Loki hadn’t expected _Thor_ to be the one to break the tense silence in the room, and he certainly hadn’t expected him to break it with _that_ question. It had him looking round at his brother, a small, incredulous smile on his face in spite of everything.

“We all know you’re going to get the damn dog, Thor!” Tyr barked. “What kind of stupid question is that? She only _comes_ to you or your dad.”

“I just wondered!” Thor said, spreading his hands, a big grin on his face, too. “What if mom wanted to keep her around? She’s her dog, too!”

Frigga was laughing.

“Darling, she’s the family’s dog, but I think I could be persuaded to let you take her. She’d be happy with you. I think you’re forgetting, I have my cat.”

Odin groaned, and Loki couldn’t keep from joining in the laughter, this time.

He’d only seen Frigga’s cat once since he’d been coming back nearly every day. She was a foul-tempered thing, a fat Persian who was only sweet for Frigga. He also had a ridiculous name.

“Dragonfang will be _fine_ company, in Mjolnir’s absence. I promise.”

Mjolnir, for her part, had sat up, having heard her name so many times, and had put her big head in Thor’s lap so he could pet her. Really, Loki thought, it had never been a question where she would go. _He_ certainly couldn’t provide enough space for her in his apartment. Baldr and Karnilla were about to have a child, they didn’t need to worry about a dog on top of that. Tyr? He didn’t really care.

Thor it was.

“Well, now that _that’s_ settled. On to the matter of Nine Realms.”

Just like that, Odin had killed the mood in the room. Loki could _feel_ the tension coming off of Thor. He could relate, but he also knew for a fact that there was no way Odin could _force_ Thor to work for the company. He couldn’t put that in his Will and have it be law.

The worst he could do would be to make it his dying wish.

Loki wouldn’t put it past him.

“Now, I know you all know that the succession plan for Nine Realms was always that it would be a family affair. I wanted to have one of you take over for me, in time, and I had hoped that we would have made more progress on that by now. I’m not saying that you haven’t, Baldr, but you’re still young, you’re still learning, and when I look at you, I can see that you’re struggling with the idea of taking over the company. That’s something I need you to think on. I need _all_ of you to think on it. Your uncle will stay in place as president, but someone is going to have to fill my role as CEO. I want that to be one of you.”

This speech was boring. Loki had heard it a thousand times before.

He desperately wanted to gesture at Baldr and point out that he was the _only_ one in the room who wanted it.

But that would start a fight.

“You’re all getting older. It’s time to think about your future, and what you intend to do with your lives. Thor, Loki, I’m talking to you, now.”

Tyr spoke up from across the room. “You can both go back to school. Thor has a bit more of an advantage with his degree, but I’m sure you’re ruthless enough to get into a business program, Loki. With all three of you able to work in officer positions for the company, along with me, I know we would do well. We’d be able to take up where your father left off, whenever that comes to pass.”

Thor looked across the room, back at their parents, and Loki followed his gaze. He wasn’t looking at Odin but, instead, at Frigga, who held his gaze but didn’t seem to betray anything of what she was thinking. Not even when her eyes slid sideways to Loki’s could he read her expression.

“Let’s just say it, all right?” Thor said, looking back at their uncle. “We all know I’m not going to do it. I _love_ what I’m doing. I enjoy it. I help people, every day, and I’m not trying to say I hate the idea of working for a company like Nine Realms, but I _hate_ the idea.”

“Your father worked his hands to the _bone_ so that there would be something for this family to fall back on. So you would have a legacy to continue.” Tyr said, his voice low and dangerous. “And you’re just going to spit in his face? _‘No thanks’_? How disrespectful--”

“--I’m not spitting in his face. I’m making a choice for me.” Thor countered.

“A fucking selfish one,” replied Tyr. “You would have guaranteed work, it wouldn’t be nearly as hard on you--”

“--It would be boring as fuck.” Loki cut in.

Immediately, everyone’s eyes were on him, Tyr and Thor included.

“It’s true.” He continued, coolly. “And if this is where the rest of the conversation is going, I’m going to check out right now.”

Standing, he adjusted his shirt, and headed across the den.

“We all know I’m not _true_ consideration for this, anyway.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! The next chapter will be posted in a few days!
> 
> Come yell at me about Thorki, this fic, and other assorted nonsense on [Twitter](http://twitter.com/slamncram)!


	4. Burning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Civility should be the name of the game. When building bridges is what Thor and Loki both want, why is it so difficult?
> 
> And what, exactly, happened in college?

“That may have been even more disrespectful than what Thor said, and you know it. That’s what you were aiming for when you said it, and you walked out. _Look_ at me when I’m talking to you.”

Loki had known this would be a consequence of what he’d done, down in the den.

After leaving that room, he’d ignored his name being called, he’d ignored everything except the ringing in his ears. He’d taken himself and his phone out to his car, climbed in behind the wheel, taken a slow, calming breath.

And then screamed.

Just for a few seconds. Just to get it out.

There was nothing about this week that had been easy, and there hadn’t been a single part of Loki that had expected the discussion about what would happen with the estate – and, in addition, the company – if and when Odin died, to be easy. That would have been ignoring truths he’d known his entire life, and he wasn’t about to put that on himself in any way. He would have been doing himself and everyone that had been in that den a disservice if he’d gone in there expecting a cake walk.

Still, it poked at a part of him that he didn’t like having disturbed.

Bringing up the company always led to this. A feeling of inadequacy, being picked last, or not being picked at all. Both he and Thor had thrown away their chances at having a job in business, but at least Thor had less of a sprint ahead of him to make it to the finish line. A finish line that had been decided for them.

That was what Loki was so used to hearing, he had thought it would go over his head. Baldr had done as expected. Thor could still get there. Loki? Loki better _work_.

He’d started the Prius and gone for a drive. He was gone only about an hour, music playing loud, windows down so the wind came in and whipped his hair around his face. It helped. By the time he’d gotten back, he’d felt ready to face the family again, including his father and uncle.

He’d only gotten four steps into the house when Baldr had said, “dad wants to talk to you as soon as you’re ready. He’s upstairs.”

That had led to where Loki was now. Sitting at Odin’s bedside, being ripped apart by a man who was _supposed_ to be resting.

Loki did as he was told, looking back at Odin, fighting to keep his expression passive.

“You had to make it about you, didn’t you?”

Loki didn’t answer. He didn’t need to; Odin was still going.

“First, by showing up late. We’d been waiting on you all morning. Then, when Karnilla and Baldr should have been the focus, you had to _attack_ your sister-in-law. Couldn’t stand that, for a second, there was something about them that wasn’t involving you, at all, and you had to step in there. Never mind the bit about the charities. I can’t _believe_ you tried to start a fight over that.”

At that, Loki couldn’t keep quiet. He laughed. “Excuse me?”

Odin shook his head. “It’s a good cause, you’re right. But, you and I both know you only brought it up to try and start a fight.”

Loki gaped, still so incredulous he didn’t know if he should laugh or scream. “I... what?!” Holding up a hand, he continued. “I brought it up because, _like you just said_, it’s a good cause, and it’s something that’s important to me. And, I would assume, to you.”

That wasn’t the entire truth. Loki _had_, in part, wondered if it would cause a fight, and he’d been ready for that reality.

His sexuality had never _really_ been something that Odin had shamed him for, but there had been a long period of his life where Odin had tried to steer him away from it. Long before Loki had even truly known that he _was_ gay. He’d been interested in dance, and would have been kept out of it if Frigga hadn’t insisted it wouldn’t hurt for him to be involved in the arts. Odin had paid the fees to put him in the best classes possible, but he hadn’t been as thrilled about it as he had been when Thor had wanted to do hockey, or Baldr had gotten involved in school groups aimed towards leadership and entrepreneurial pursuits.

Then there had been the makeup. The mascara had been something Loki could hide, for a time, but the morning Odin caught him applying it in his and Frigga’s bathroom, there had been a fight.

They hadn’t really ever stopped fighting since. Loki had gone to his prom with a feather boa, he’d danced with boys. He’d had a summer boyfriend, and then another one in his first year of college. It hadn’t escaped his notice that Odin hadn’t really seemed to understand how to approach it.

It wasn’t that he disapproved. Not really.

But, he wasn’t particularly supportive. He only seemed to remember that Loki was gay when it suited the narrative he was trying to concoct.

There was also the fact that, when Thor had told the family he was fairly sure he was bisexual, Odin had scoffed, told him to stop following Loki’s lead, and then promptly bit his tongue when Thor had said he was dating someone on his hockey team.

Odin had never really _taken_ to the knowledge about his sons the way Frigga had, and it was a source of tension. At least, between himself and Loki, who had come home after his first pride parade and been told he looked like a clown, by his father.

He’d never really been quiet about it, since then.

So, perhaps Odin hadn’t been so far off in accusing him of trying to start a fight with what he’d brought up.

“I’m sorry that you feel like that’s what I was trying to do. Maybe I was.” Loki shrugged his shoulders. “I couldn’t say for sure. But, you know, I, personally, feel like it was pretty disrespectful to drag me out here, just so you and Uncle Tyr could sit there and shame me for what I’ve chosen to do with my life, while favouring Thor who, I don’t know if you know this, does not _want_ to work for Nine Realms, and probably never will.”

Odin scowled. “You’re here because you’re my son, and I expect that you want to be a part of family decisions.”

“A part?” Loki had to laugh at that. “Oh, I see. My part is to sit there and be told ‘you’ll get what we give you’, which is fine, and your right. But then to also be told that I’m supposed to throw away my happiness in order to fulfill the plans that _you_ made for me. Or, was that just a courtesy?”

“You’re being ridiculous.” Odin said, shaking his head.

“Am I?”

Loki could feel the anger sparking in his stomach. This hadn’t been what he’d come out here to do, today. He’d _intended_ to come out here, talk to Thor, find some common ground, and move on. Now, he was on the verge of another fight with his father.

He supposed that was just to be expected, nowadays.

“You and I both know that I won’t do it. When have I _ever_ given up something I wanted to do because you had a different plan? There was really no point including me in those discussions, because I’m only a charity case.”

The words were out of his mouth before Loki could stop and think about them. They were heavy, and he saw the way they hit Odin. He saw them cut into him, merciless, and he wished, almost immediately, that he could take them back.

But there was no backing down from it. Not from what he’d said, and not from his anger.

“Is that truly what you think? You’re just our charity case?”

Loki pressed his lips together. “You adopted me because it was the _right_ thing to do. You wanted me, of course. You love me, I know. But when it comes to the Nine Realms? You don’t _really_ think I’m cut out for that, do you? I’m not a _true_ Borson. I’m too sharp, too flashy, too _much_. I would never be a good asset there. But you had to include me. It would be _uncharitable_ not to.”

Odin was silent, for a few minutes, and Loki sat back in his chair, looking away from his father, out the window. It was starting to get late in the afternoon. He needed to start thinking about dinner, soon, and when he was going to talk to Thor. He was clearly on a roll having tough conversations with family members. Probably, he should just go find Thor once he was done here. Get it all finished in one fell swoop.

“We’re not getting anywhere.”

Loki looked back at Odin to find his father wasn’t looking at him.

“I can tell I won’t be getting through to you, Loki. Go ahead. Go do whatever it is you’d rather be doing. Come talk to me again when you’re ready to be civil.”

Civil.

That word kept coming up, when it came to Loki and his family.

As he stood up and left Odin’s room, he couldn’t help but think he was going to start to hate that word, and soon.

Civil with Odin. Civil with Thor. He supposed he should try being civil with his sister-in-law. Civil with his uncle? An attempt could be made.

Being civil with Odin wasn’t going to come easy, and he’d lost his chance to make an attempt at it, for now. That meant that Thor needed to be the next on his list.

Leaving Odin’s room, Loki moved down the hall, passing the main stairs, to the side of the upper floor that they had all lived on. Thor’s bedroom door was closed, like it had been so often when they were teenagers but, instead of just opening the door and waltzing in, Loki paused outside of it.

This felt weird. It didn’t feel quite real. Once, Loki would have simply swung the door open, and dropped onto Thor’s bed, immediately commanding all of his time and attention. Now, he was hesitating to even knock. Knocking meant opening up the door for conversation, and, at the same time, opening up the box of everything Loki had tried not to think about for years, now. Being civil, or working towards civility, however, wasn’t going to happen all by itself. Someone needed to make the first move.

Loki knocked, and waited.

And waited.

Frowning, he knocked again, and then, hoping he wouldn’t be interrupting anything, he turned the knob and pushed the door open.

The room was empty. That explained why Loki hadn’t been able to get any kind of answer, and it meant that, if he wanted to talk to Thor, he needed to go find him.

That was a task that had _seemed_ simple enough in theory. Thor wasn’t in his room, and certainly wasn’t with Odin. He wasn’t anywhere upstairs, he wasn’t in the den, or in the study, that Loki had needed to hurry past to avoid his apparently still steaming uncle. He wasn’t outside in the front and, walking around the house, Loki didn’t see him anywhere outside.

Frowning, he came in through the back door, into the solarium. The plant that Mjolnir had knocked down, earlier, was still a little out of place, and Loki leaned down to shove it back. As he did, he noticed the movement at the other end of the solarium.

Frigga’s space was, chiefly, her space. Yes, there had always been the allowance and permission for her sons to come into the solarium, and have their run of it. Or, nearly all of it. The left wing was full of her plants and decor, the door to the yard coming off of that side. The right wing, though, changed as you walked further along it. The decor became sparser, the furniture disappeared, until you were standing in a glass walled painting studio, the centerpiece of which was Frigga’s easel and stool.

That was where she was sitting now, her brush travelling the canvas in long strokes as Loki approached.

“Feeling better?”

Loki smiled.

“In a way,” he answered, coming around her side. “A storm?”

“A storm.” Frigga confirmed, painting the deep, dark clouds in the sky of her piece. “Just like my two youngest sons.”

“About that,” Loki started. “Have you seen Thor?”

Frigga’s brush paused, and she turned to look at him. Loki met her eyes, so long as he felt like she wasn’t trying to reach inside his mind and pull out the secrets he desperately wanted to keep hidden there.

“He... left about fifteen minutes ago, with Baldr and Karnilla. They invited him over for dinner and drinks. Wanted to catch up with him...”

Loki smile froze on his face. “Oh.”

Frigga sighed. “I’m sorry, darling. Were you hoping to talk to him?”

Waving his hand, Loki leaned in, kissing her cheek. “Not in any hurry to do that, trust me. It can wait.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m positive.” Loki assured her. Gesturing to her painting, he backed away. “I’ll let you get back to what you were doing.”

Frigga didn’t argue, but from the way she watched him go, Loki knew she didn’t buy for a second that he was fine with waiting.

He’d _explicitly_ asked Thor to talk to him, today. Thor had _agreed_. And then, the second Baldr offered _his_ time, Thor was going to take it and run?

He’d be damn lucky if Loki didn’t slash his tires.

There was no point, now, in sticking around. Thor was gone with Baldr and Karnilla. Tyr would sooner get into a shouting match with him than anything else. Odin should be resting, and Frigga deserved her quiet time, after everything she’d already put up with today. Knowing all that, Loki left the solarium, and headed straight to the front of the house, and out the door. His Prius was still sitting in the driveway where he’d left it after his stress-relieving drive, Thor’s Coronet in the same place it had been the day before, which meant he’d been driven over to Baldr and Karnilla’s, and was probably going to be there for a long time before one of them drove him back.

“Asshole,” Loki muttered, opening his car door before he stopped.

There was a piece of paper, folded over, stuck under his window wiper. Anywhere else, Loki would have assumed his bad luck was continuing in the form of parking tickets, but this was his parents’ driveway. No one could ticket him here.

Frowning, he pulled the paper from under the wiper, and got into the car, closing the door before he unfolded the note in his hand.

_Loki,_

_I know you wanted to talk. I forgot I told Karnilla I’d come over tonight. We can talk tomorrow, or talk when I’m done at their place._

_Don’t know if you have my new number. I’ll give it to you just in case. Let me know._

_Thor_

There was a number scrawled under his name, with a New York area code.

No, Loki _didn’t_ have Thor’s new number.

Once he got home, however, he would be deciding whether or not he was going to be using it, now that he did.

***

Thor wasn’t sure this was a good idea, but it was all he had.

Today had been exhausting, emotionally. Between having to stay on his toes when Baldr walked in and had Karnilla in tow, to wondering when Loki would show up, to the discussion about what would happen with the estate, the bulk of the day had already been taxing. Then, he’d remembered he had double-booked himself.

It was easier to cancel on Loki than it ever would have been to cancel on Karnilla and Baldr. Karnilla wouldn’t have let him hear the end of it, at least, not any time soon. Loki was a brat, he was being dramatic, and Thor shouldn’t be giving him the time of day. If anything, Thor should be making Loki work on _his_ schedule. Thor knew that was the jist of what Karnilla would say, and so, he’d gone along with the original plan. The one he’d had before Loki had asked to talk later, back in the solarium.

He’d been so thrown off by that, he hadn’t thought about anything else.

There was no way he could explain that to Karnilla. He was afraid of saying it, and seeing some kind of understanding in Baldr’s eyes, the kind he’d seen all those years ago, when he’d said he was bumping his plans to move out up a few months.

Sometimes, Baldr was too perceptive for his own good.

Thor couldn’t deal with that. Not on top of everything else that had crossed his plate.

He’d gone to dinner. It was a nice affair. Steak, potatoes and green beans. A nice red wine. Then there had been conversation after. Small talk about how work was going for everyone. Thor had enjoyed it enough, but halfway through dinner his phone had gone off, and when he’d finally checked it, when everything was put away and the dishes were done, his suspicions had been confirmed.

Loki had used the number he’d left on his car. That, apparently, had been a wise choice. Thor had known, when he was leaving, that as soon as Loki found out he was gone, he was either going to have another quiet rage that led to him driving around the deserted back roads around their parents’ property, or he was going to leave. Either way, he was going to end up back out at his car, and so, leaving the note there had been the wisest thing to do.

Thor didn’t have Loki’s current number, it seemed, judging by the band of numbers along the top of the message, but that didn’t really matter. All that mattered was the content of the text.

_ Got your message. Would prefer tonight._

_ Not coming back out of LA though. Fair warning._

_ If you’re willing, you can come to my place._

_ We’ll talk._

_ L._

L.

It was almost cute, if Thor didn’t think Loki was being a little annoying about all this. He had been the one to leave, he was the one who was insisting they talk, and now he was telling Thor to chase him into the city if he wanted to do it?

Thor didn’t know what he’d expected, though.

And he knew he should have been more annoyed to see that Loki apparently still knew him well enough to know he _would_ come after him into the city.

Thor had replied, saying he would come, once he was done at Baldr’s, but he didn’t have a time estimate for that. Loki’s only reply had been to text him an address, and the instructions ‘_buzz apartment 2_’.

Now, almost four hours later, Thor was standing on a downtown street, not exactly in the best area of town. He’d waited until Baldr had gone all the way back down the driveway before he’d gotten in the Coronet and headed into the city. He hadn’t wanted to talk about visiting Loki with his older brother. Somehow, he thought it might not go well. Baldr might try to talk him out of it, or worse, come along.

He didn’t think Loki would like it very much if he showed up for whatever this talk was, and Baldr was behind him.

Walking up the street from where he’d parked the Coronet, Thor checked the property numbers. All these places were businesses. A new age store, a tailoring place, a board game cafe...

Thor stopped, frowning, and looked from the cafe to the shop. In between them was a metal door, and set into the brick next to it was a set of gold-plated numbers. _938_.

Thor glanced down at his phone, confirming that. 938.

This was it.

Pulling the door open, Thor stepped into a small lobby, and looked around himself. There were two small mailboxes set into the wall, one engraved with the number 1, the other with the number 2. Next to that was an intercom over a small call-board. There were only two names on it, but the first didn’t concern Thor. Next to the button for apartment 2, little white plastic letters were pressed into the black backing that read _Borson_.

Thor pressed the button, and a second later, there was a buzz, and he was able to pull the door into the building proper open, and head up the stairs.

This had not been what Thor had expected when Loki had said he was doing _really well_, yesterday. From the venom in his voice, Thor had expected to be parking outside some high-rise, going through a long list to find what apartment number his brother was actually in. Arriving here, it settled him a little more.

Really, it wasn’t much better than the split-level he was renting in Queens. In fact, his split-level may have been nicer.

Still, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. The stairs up to the apartments were clean, and the short hallway Thor came out on was the same. He passed apartment 1, which he figured had a view of the back of the building. That meant that Loki’s apartment could probably see out, over the street. That would have been convenient for Loki; he could have watched Thor coming. In fact, be probably had.

Stopping outside apartment 2, Thor closed his eyes, took a breath, and knocked.

Loki answered just about immediately.

He wasn’t wearing the jeans he’d worn to the house today anymore, and his hair was tied up in a bun, exposing that he had more than just a side shave, but an undercut as well. Other than that, not much had changed from the last time Thor had seen him, just before he’d stormed out of the den. Thor was still wearing the same clothes he’d been wearing that day. Leaving straight from being dropped off in the driveway hadn’t left him the opportunity to change.

“Hey,” he greeted, not knowing what else to say.

Loki stepped back and waved him in. He didn’t speak, but Thor didn’t push it.

The apartment was nice. Across from the door, to the left, there was a set of three windows that took over the wall. Loki had curtains hung from them, but he’d left them open, and light from the street was coming in, cold in contrast to the warm light coming from the tall lamp Loki had in the corner. There was a dark brown couch in front of the windows, and Thor immediately recognized the quilt thrown over the back and one arm of it. That same quilt had been in their mother’s blanket chest for years. It seemed she’d found a different home for it.

Aside from the couch, there was a small ottoman in the middle of the living area, and a television stand directly across from it. There was a TV perched on it, and next to that sat Loki’s laptop, an HDMI cable snaking from it into the back of the TV.

Against the far wall was a desk, and sitting on top of it was what looked to be a high-end sewing machine. There was a closet door next to that. It was closed.

“Nice place.” Thor commented, entirely sincere. The kitchen was on his right. There was an island counter with two bar stools on the side closest to them, and a full set of stainless steel appliances. They didn’t look brand new, but they were new enough.

“It’s not like mom and dad’s, but it’s pretty nice.” Loki agreed. “If you want to hang your coat up, closet’s there.” He pointed at another closet door, this one to the right of the entrance, which he’d closed and locked behind Thor. “Bathroom is there.”

Loki pointed to the only open door in the place. Thor’s gaze slid to the closed door next to it.

“That’s my room. Just... stay out of it.”

“Wasn’t planning on going in,” Thor said, quietly, turning around to take off his jacket and hang it up.

There was a tension between them that he wasn’t crazy about. There hadn’t been many times, since they’d fallen out, that they had been alone together. Especially not in a way that meant there was no one nearby to interrupt if things got out of hand. They both knew it, of that he had no doubt, and so, they both knew that they had to try to regulate themselves as much as possible.

By the time Thor turned around, Loki had sat himself on the couch, in the corner farthest away from Thor. He gestured to the other side of the couch, where the quilt had been pushed up and onto the back to make room for him. Without argument, Thor crossed the room and sat down.

Loki picked his nails. “How was dinner with Baldr?”

Thor shrugged. “Not bad.”

“Mm. What did you have?”

“Steak, potatoes, green beans. Wine.” Thor smiled, just slightly. “The usual fare.”

Across the couch, he saw Loki smile, too. “No imagination there.”

“Unfortunately, no. It was still good, don’t get me wrong, but that was definitely a ‘safe’ dinner. Something everyone was guaranteed to like, and it would be hard to get wrong.” This wasn’t so bad. Making casual fun of Baldr had been a practice they’d shared for years before everything went south. “Did you get dinner?”

Loki looked across the couch, and when he grinned, Thor was reminded of all the years they’d spent getting up to trouble together. “I just made spaghetti. Sauce from a jar.”

Thor couldn’t help it. He laughed. Loki did, too.

“And you’re calling Baldr unimaginative?”

“In my defense, at least I _did_ have to stop and imagine _which_ sauce from a jar would taste the best,” Loki countered, holding up a finger.

Against all his fears, this was almost going well. Thor wouldn’t have seen it coming. Yesterday had been sharp, the claws coming out immediately. Today, neither of them seemed to want to be the one to make the first swipe.

Val and Carol had challenged him to try and find a middle ground with Loki. To try and find a way they could be civil with each other. He’d thought that might be impossible, but after all this time, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe they could both move past the hurt they’d put the other through. It had been years, after all, and Thor knew that he, for certain, missed the way things used to be.

With that in mind, Thor gave Loki a genuine smile.

“So, what did you want to talk about?”

The effect those words had on Loki were immediate. He’d been almost relaxed but now, he tensed up again, taking his eyes off Thor and lacing his fingers together. That was a habit he’d picked up from their mother, the same as he’d first picked up the nervous fidgeting in the first place.

“Obviously, it’s been... _some time_ since we’ve seen each other. And we don’t really tend to get along. Anymore.” Loki started. Thor wasn’t sure what to expect, here. An apology? A request for apology? “Which is all fine and good, but we’re adults, and mom – mom has enough on her plate without us fighting each other. I’m fighting everyone else, I don’t need to add you to the list that’s stressing her out.”

Thor kept quiet, watching Loki carefully. Was Loki asking what Thor _thought_ he was?

“And, at least, for her, I think we should try for a truce.” Loki finally met his eyes, firm on this. “Not just for however long you’re going to be here. She’s going through enough, and I think she wants us to try acting like a family again, and I’d really appreciate if you’d help with that.” He paused. “I understand doing something for _my_ benefit isn’t something you’re keen on--”

“--Loki, stop for a second.”

Loki did, but he didn’t look all that thrilled about it. He’d been on a roll, and Thor had managed to derail him. What he was asking for, though, if Thor was right, meant that he couldn’t start a fight over that. He had to actively _try_ not to.

“I can do that. I can do that easily, because I was thinking we should try for the same. Try to be civil, for mom’s sake. I don’t _want_ to constantly be fighting you, Loki. I really don’t. It doesn’t make me happy, it doesn’t make any of this easier.” Thor paused.

He could see the relief on Loki’s face. Possibly, his brother had expected some kind of push-back, and Thor was glad he’d been able to dodge around those expectations. If they were already on the same page for this, it made being home a lot easier. They could be civil while they were back in their parents’ house, and when Thor left, he would leave knowing that coming home for the holidays wasn’t something he needed to dread anymore. They wouldn’t become something he avoided to try and keep from spending Christmas in a shouting match with his younger brother.

But, while they were at it, there was something he wanted to acknowledge.

“What happened, back then...”

Again, Loki stiffened up, and with him, the tension in the room ratcheted up.

Thor pressed on.

“We can put that behind us?”

Thor had expected Loki to go along with their new agreement. He’d expected him to sigh and give a begrudging ‘yes’, and that be the end of it. That was what he’d wanted, now that he knew Loki was on the same page as him.

But, the look on Loki’s face told him his expectations were out of line with reality.

“Back then.” Loki started. “You mean when you kissed me.”

Thor could have let it go. He could have let Loki’s accusation stand, and tried to soldier through the deal they’d tentatively brokered. There was something in Loki’s tone that couldn’t let Thor do that, though.

“Excuse me? Yes, I kissed you. Who drove to my student house? Who climbed into bed with me? Who was that, Loki?” Thor asked. “Because I seem to remember it was you.”

Loki was so still it almost didn’t look like he was breathing.

“You did all that. After weeks of what we _both_ knew wasn’t joking. And then yes, I kissed you. Because you were in bed with me, because you’d _snuck_ into bed with me. Because you wanted something you shouldn’t have had, and then what did you do when you got it?”

It had been years, and they’d never talked about it, but Thor still remembered it, clear as day.

Loki, sliding under the covers with him, his eyes huge in the moonlight. He’d shown up that night as a surprise, played video games with Thor and his housemates. Said he’d crash on the couch, while looking up at Thor from the floor. He’d sat there all night, between Thor’s legs, playing in matches and watching them. He’d just been Thor’s Brother, come to hang out, and no one had known the tension Thor was feeling. The shame.

The all-encompassing desire.

Loki had been texting him for weeks. Telling him the things he’d been doing with boys on his campus, telling him the things he wanted done to him. Telling him how he’d wanted to find someone he could get in bed with, and just kiss and touch for hours until they were both lost.

Thor had, at first, been playing the supportive brother. Telling Loki he was proud of him, he was happy he was happy, but to please be safe with what he was doing. He’d gotten Loki’s selfies and helped him with outfits and complimented the way he’d done his makeup, from the subtle to the stand-out.

Eventually, though, Thor had gotten hungry for it. Loki’s texts were like a drug, something he craved until he got the next one.

Loki showing up that night as a surprise had been wonderful, but it had been the first time since the winter holidays Thor had seen him in person, and all he could think about were those texts, and the teasing, sweet things his pretty little brother wanted to do with another man.

When Loki had climbed into bed with him, Thor had hesitated. He had. He’d kept his hands to himself, until Loki was wrapping his arms around him, pressing close, murmuring his name.

That had been like a trigger.

Thor had rolled Loki on his back, and he’d kissed him. He’d kissed him hungrily, deep, his hands running down Loki’s sides, up under his shirt. And Loki...

Oh, the noise he’d made.

Thor still heard it, sometimes, when he was alone, lost in thought.

It had been everything, and it had been the one thing that had snapped Thor out of it.

He’d climbed off Loki like he’d been burnt, backed up across his room, staring at his brother in his bed. His brother with his sleep shirt pushed up around his ribs, his lips wet, and his eyes utterly confused. They’d stared at each other like that for what felt like an hour before Thor shook his head, and Loki, his cheeks pink, had stormed from the room.

Nothing had been the same since then. Loki left first thing in the morning. His exams had already finished two days before, and he would see Thor back at home. Thor still had a week left of his own exams before he would get back there.

By the time he had gotten back to L.A., he’d known what he needed to do.

He’d moved out within the first month of summer break. He’d passed his exams, and would be back for graduation in the fall, but he was moving to New York. Their parents had thought that was a wonderful idea. New York was a great place for business-minded people.

Thor had just needed to put as much distance between himself and Loki as possible.

“_You_ ran,” Loki said, quietly, his voice bringing Thor back to the here and now. It was his turn to be in Loki’s house, now, bringing up uncomfortable things. “Not me.”

“You left before we could even talk about it!”

“_What_ would we have talked about?” Loki asked. There was a sharp edge to his voice that let Thor know he was treading on thin ice. “How you kissed me? How I let you? How I wanted you to, and you stopped it. You told me no. I was _wrong_, and I had to live with the fact that my big brother was horrified, but we _never_ talked about it. You came home and you had your _big plans_ to move away.”

“We can talk about it now!” Thor shot back, sitting up straight. “All right, Loki, why didn’t _you_ ever try and talk to _me_? You holed up in your room, pretending you were a victim, like we didn’t both have something to do with it. Of course, I’m not the one who was laying traps for months--”

“--Get out.”

Thor stopped, staring across the couch at Loki. He was clenching both of his hands into fists, and his eyes were focusing on something over Thor’s left shoulder. Not even truly looking at him.

“What?”

“You heard me.” Loki was so angry he was shaking. Thor could see it. “Get the _hell_ out of my house, Thor. Now!”

“Loki--”

“--Get out!”

That time, Loki actually yelled, and that, more than anything, finally got Thor moving. He stood up quick, marching over to the closet and yanking it open to get out his jacket. He pulled it on and bent down to shove his feet into his boots.

“So much for being civil.”

Thor straightened to see Loki still sitting on the couch, still shaking with anger, but, as he stood there, Loki stood up and came towards him.

“Fuck you, Thor. I will be as civil as it fucking takes to keep mom happy, but I was a goddamn _idiot_ for thinking I could make peace with you. You’re nothing but a cowardly asshole.” He moved past Thor, and pulled open the door. “Get the fuck out of my house.”

Thor didn’t need to be told twice.

He didn’t even make the stairs before the door slammed behind him, the echo of Loki’s rage following him down the stairs and out the door into the cool night air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! The next chapter will be posted in a few days!
> 
> Come yell at me about Thorki, this fic, and other assorted nonsense on [Twitter](http://twitter.com/slamncram)!


	5. Discovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exactly _what_ it is that Loki does for a living, no one knows. At least, no one in the family.

Loki didn’t come to the house the next day. Thor wasn’t entirely surprised by that. He’d gotten back to the house late the night before, after taking the longest possible way home, and gone to bed, just to lay there for three hours going over what had happened. He didn’t get out of bed until nearly noon, and when he did, he didn’t feel like he’d rested at all. His subconscious had been far too busy going over and over the fight the night before.

It couldn’t have been more obvious that neither of them was _over_ what had happened, all those years ago. Thor had been naive to think it was something he could bring up; Loki hadn’t been looking to mend bridges, he’d just wanted them to attempt a cease fire for their mother’s sake. Bringing up what had happened, the way Thor had, certainly wasn’t making that cease fire simple.

Loki had a point. It had never been something they had discussed, and that wasn’t blame that Thor alone held. They’d never _tried_ to discuss it, had never even given it a shot. What happened between them – what _nearly_ happened – had been so unthinkable and taboo that bringing it up would have been playing with fire, so soon after.

Years later, it was clear that it still was.

Spending time thinking about it wasn’t helping his headache, and neither was the coffee. Thor went for a run, a long one, hoping to clear his head. By the time he got back to the house, he felt _almost_ normal. The endorphins had done their job, and without Loki skulking around the house, he didn’t need to be constantly reminded that he’d brought that night up just for Loki to blow up.

“I guess your brother isn’t coming today.” Frigga commented, when Thor came into the solarium. He’d showered, redressed, and been ready to see if there was anything he could do for her. If he’d known that having a small talk conversation about Loki was what she needed, he might not have tried so hard to be a good son.

“Guess not. No surprise.”

Frigga looked over at him from where she was perched on her stool. On her easel, she’d propped a large canvas that was covered in blues, purples and greys, richly illustrating a summer storm. Today, she was working on the bottom of the painting, grass so dark it was almost black, the shadow of a fence. It was beautiful. It also looked the way Thor felt inside at this conversation topic.

“He _is_ rather busy a lot of the time, you know. Not that he tells us what he’s doing. Secretive, your brother.” She turned back to the painting, flicking her brush in careful little strokes. Thor pushed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and came closer. “As far as I can _tell_, it’s legal, so I’m not worried. I’m sure he just forgot to tell us he had something to do today.”

Thor didn’t have the heart to tell her that the reason Loki wasn’t coming was because he and Thor had fought the night before. Avoiding putting that on her plate had been the whole reason they’d even started the discussion that had led to the fight.

“This is nice.” Thor said, instead, leaning forward to look at the painting. “Starting to think we need something like this. It’s dry out here.”

Frigga laughed softly. “It’s dry everywhere. It’s summer.” She sighed. “It’s summer, and you’re all holed up here, trying to help your father and I with everything, and having conversations none of us want to have. I’m sorry.” She turned to look at him.

“It’s not much fun.”

Thor smiled. “Mom, I’m _home_. I haven’t been here in a long time. It’s nice, to see everyone.”

He looped his arm around her shoulders, and she leaned into it.

“It is... But, you know, I think all this talk? It’s not helping anyone’s mood. We need to do something _fun_. Something summery.” Looking up at Thor, she continued, “how about we have a barbecue? It’s Monday, now, and I think... I _think_ Loki told me he had plans on Friday. But we could have a barbecue on Thursday night.”

It sounded like a wonderful idea, but Thor couldn’t help frowning.

“Here?”

Frigga nodded.

“Mom, not to stomp on your plans, but if you’re trying to have us do something fun... If it’s just all of us, I don’t know if that’s going to help. It’s probably just going to end in more tension and dark conversations.” Thor explained, gently. His mother just wanted _something_ to break up this monotony, and he knew that. It was simply that the idea of a barbecue, with the two of them, his father, his uncle, his two brothers and Karnilla sounded like it would end, more or less, in the same fashion as the meeting in the den the day before.

His mother was laughing, though, shaking her head and leaning back into her painting. “Dear _god_, no. It won’t be just us. I’ll invite some of our friends, Baldr and Karnilla can invite some of theirs, Loki as well.” She looked up at him for a second, before going back to her careful brush strokes. “You still have quite a few friends who live in the area. You think you might want to see them?”

She had a point. True, Thor had left many of his friends – Tony, Steve, Clint, Natasha, Bucky, Sam, Maria, T’Challa – back in New York, but he still had a lot on the west coast. Fandral, Sif, Volstagg and Hogun, if Thor was lucky, would all be free, and they were always in the mood for a good barbecue. Gamora and her sister Nebula might, if they were both in town. It would mean he might have to put up with Gamora’s boyfriend, but he would do that to have his friends there. Scott was always fun to have around, and Thor _would_ like to meet his fiancée, Hope, who he’d only see in photos on Facebook. If Bruce wasn’t busy on some top-secret government project, he might be able to find time.

It would be nice to have them, his friends, to catch up with. People to see and share memories with who _weren’t_ Baldr and Loki.

“I’d love to see them.” Thor answered, honestly. “I might go and start seeing who’s free, now. Thursday? For sure?”

Frigga nodded, and Thor was happy to see that there was a light in her eyes that had seemed dimmed since he got here. This would be good, for all of them. “I’ll take a break soon and go call to get some things lined up. We’ll do it here, obviously.”

“Obviously.” Thor agreed and, bending to kiss her cheek, he left, already pulling his phone from his back pocket and scrolling through his contacts.

Just two more days of being stifled with only his family, who were a decidedly unhappy bunch right now, for company. Thor could get through that.

And, with having this to help Frigga arrange, he wouldn’t have the time to linger on what had happened between himself and Loki.

It was a win-win for everyone.

Thor had made a promise. In a way.

Loki hadn’t come around to the house on Monday, or Tuesday. Thor hadn’t reached out, trusting that Frigga had, and whatever excuse Loki had given her had been sufficient enough to sate any curiosity she had. Thor certainly didn’t want to get into it with anyone; the reason Loki wasn’t around was him, and thinking about what _he_ had brought up to cause that wasn’t something that needed discussion outside of the two of them.

“But, the two of you have _never_ discussed it.”

The promise Thor had made was to one of his longest friends. One of the few he’d carried through to adulthood. She was the one, on the other side of the line, now, sighing and waiting for Thor to continue speaking. Thor, for his part, was looking out, across the pond, back up towards the house. The sun was setting, lighting the sky up pink and gold, and making the house cast long, dark shadows across the back lawn. Everyone else was inside, and he was alone out here.

Still, he felt almost as though _someone_ was looking at him, judging, trying to work out what had happened all those years ago when Val’s voice came over the speaker, just a little tinny with impatience.

“Thor?”

“Uh, yeah,” Thor responded, pulling his eyes away from the upper windows of the house. “Where’s Carol?”

Val sighed, again. “She’s at the base, still working. It’s just you and me.”

Thor nodded, knowing that she couldn’t see it. “Fine. Then, no. Loki and I have _never_ discussed what happened. You know that, I would have told you if we did. The closest we’ve ever come was Sunday night, and that...”

“Could have gone better.” Val agreed, filling in the end of his sentence for him, after a fashion. “A lot of what’s happened between you two could have gone better.”

There were very few people in the world who knew what had happened between Thor and his younger brother. To Thor’s knowledge, it was only himself, Loki, and Val. That last one had been almost a mistake.

It had been two days after Loki had left in a flurry. Thor’s roommates were out of the house, and it had just been himself and Val, and the game plan had been to study. The game plan had _not_ been to break open a few beers, and get to venting, but that was what had happened. And after his third beer, everything had started coming out. Pouring out of Thor like a stopper had been removed, and he couldn’t stop it from coming, no matter how much he wanted to. Val had sat there, silently, and let him vent it all. She hadn’t judged, she hadn’t interrupted, she hadn’t tried to stop him, because she didn’t want to hear all of this.

And when Thor was done, all she’d said was, ‘it sounds complicated as hell, and you need to talk to him.’

Thor had agreed, and then, promptly, proceeded to do exactly the opposite of that. Instead of taking Val’s advice and talking to Loki about what had happened, as soon as he’d slept and sobered up, he’d started planning his next move. The one that would carry him across the country, and away from ever having to discuss the thing that had happened between him and Loki with _Loki_.

Val had never openly said that she thought he’d made a mistake. Thor knew that she had understood exactly the sort of mess he had been dealing with. Not only that, but she, too, had been battling her own demons. Thor had never begrudged her for not getting overly involved in his complicated life drama. She’d had enough of her own that had come in a bottle.

Now, though, they were both older, and wiser, and a lot more sober. Thor knew he couldn’t run for much longer, not when he and Loki were both leashed to this house for a little while longer. Especially not when he had Val on the other end of the phone, quietly but unmistakably judging him.

“It could have gone better, but I don’t think it’s ever going to,” Thor said, readjusting his seat on the grass. “It’s not like he stole my car and banged it up, or I kissed his prom date or something. It’s complicated, and it’s messy, and both of us know it shouldn’t have happened.”

“Well, you know what I know? I know that kind of thing hanging over your relationship can really fuck it up, and I know that this thing hanging over your relationship _has_. Sometimes you have to face these things, head-on.”

“It’s easier said than done. You don’t really know Loki--”

Val cut him off with a sarcastic laugh, and Thor let the hand holding his phone go a little slack with annoyance. By the time he was readjusting it against his ear, she was talking again.

“I _know_ your brother. He’s vindictive, and bratty, and a drama queen, and that’s at his best. But I also know that you two _loved_ each other. You were best friends. This broke you apart and made it hard for you to even be around each other, but... You’ve grown up. Haven’t you?”

“Yes, of course I have, but it doesn’t mean that talking about it is going to get easier. We can’t talk about it here, there’s too many people who will overhear it. Getting Loki to let me come over to his place again? Absolutely not going to happen, unless it’s on fire, and even _then_ I think it would be a hard sell. Plus, there’s the issue of making time. With everything else going on...”

“Your mom is planning a barbecue. Just wait until everyone else is distracted and pull him aside. Hide in the crawlspace if you have to, to talk about it, but, personally? I think you need to _make_ time. Figure it out, Thor, because the universe will not figure it out for you.”

What everybody wanted, and Thor knew this, was for there to be peace. It didn’t matter if it was his mother, his friends, his father or himself; everyone wanted there to be peace, because with the upheaval caused by Odin’s heart attack, peace was a fleeting thing. It was what they deserved, too. Thor’s mother, at least, who was already having to shoulder enough, and shouldn’t need to worry about the dangers and rollercoasters of her sons’ years-long feud.

The issue was, what everybody wanted, Thor couldn’t be sure Loki did. Loki had made a habit out of being contrary. When they had been children, there had been times when he would deliberately go against something, _just_ to rile people up. He thrived on causing chaos, no matter if it was big or small. Theoretically, since becoming an adult, he’d moved away from that, but Thor wasn’t so sure. If everyone else wanted peace, Loki might just try to keep on fighting, just so he didn’t give _everyone_ what they wanted.

Knowing that, by the time Thursday afternoon rolled around, Thor was happy in his decision just to let whatever happened, happen.

He didn’t need to corner Loki. He didn’t _need_ to talk about it. If the opportunity presented itself, then, of course, provided they were in a safe area where no one would overhear the potential explosion, he _might_ go after it, but it wasn’t his priority.

Especially not with the house and backyard full of people. Friends of the family, long-time partners of Odin, Thor’s friends, Baldr’s friends, even Loki’s friends. Thor was constantly weaving in and out of groups, being grabbed by this circle of women his mother used to be in a book club with (and evidently still was) or that group of men who were discussing the success of Nine Realms, and wondering where Thor saw himself going in the future.

It was equal parts exhausting and enjoyable, and by the time a hand fell on his shoulder, Thor half-expected he was going to have to dredge his brain for a memory of who the person was he was talking to.

Not this time, however.

“Heimdall.”

Thor couldn’t help the wave of relief that washed over him as he turned and greeted his oldest friend.

Heimdall had been an intern, once. At least, that’s what Thor _thought_. He’d never really known. He’d known him as his father’s assistant, a man not that much older than Thor. Kind, smart in a way that didn’t come across as gloating, and patient, he had put up with Odin’s children in ways most assistants wouldn’t have. He’d risen in the ranks of the Nine Realms Corporation since then, until he was one of the most powerful members of its leadership, and rightfully so.

Thor hadn’t seen him for years. That time had changed Heimdall, but not in any way quite so drastic or concerning as his own father. There was a peppering of grey in his black hair, mostly around his temples, and there were a few more lines around his striking, honey-brown eyes, but other than that, he didn’t seem like he’d aged all that much at all.

Heimdall accepted his hug, pulling back and looking him over.

“You’ve changed.”

Thor laughed. “Is it the haircut?”

Heimdall smiled. “The haircut. The extra hundred pounds of muscle. New York agrees with you, I take it?”

It was nice to talk to Heimdall. That was the baseline of it all, it was _nice_ to talk to Heimdall. He may have been more than ten years Thor’s senior, but he’d never treated him like ‘the boss’ son’, and he’d never brushed him off. There were no expectations with Heimdall, either. Maybe it was because he’d, in a way, seen Thor grow up. He knew what he was capable of, and the path he’d chosen, and because he wasn’t _directly_ related to the family, he had the blessing of being able to see beyond that. He hadn’t ever spoken to Thor like he was nothing more than Odin’s son, destined to follow in his father’s footsteps, and for that, Thor had always been grateful.

He was even more grateful now, because, for the first time, he was talking to someone who didn’t really _care_ about how he felt about the company. Heimdall had more questions for him about New York, and how his career with firefighting was going, than he had questions about anything else.

It was immediately refreshing, and, Thor felt, for the first time since he’d woken up that morning, like he could breathe a little easier.

“How are you doing with what’s happened?”

The entire conversation, of course, couldn’t stay away from his family, and Thor had known that. Enough of it had, however, that when Heimdall asked what he did, Thor didn’t feel a weight pressing down on his chest.

“It’s shocking, obviously,” he started, moving a little away from the group of Baldr’s friends chatting nearby. It was never a certain thing, but very often, Baldr’s friends happened to work for the company. Thor didn’t want his barbecue conversation to become water cooler talk the next day. Especially not water cooler talk at his father’s company. “But, maybe you can tell me something. Mom said he hasn’t exactly been balancing work and his home life. He’s working too much, in her opinion, and it contributed. The stress and lack of rest, paired with everything else he has going on, considering his age...”

Looking at Heimdall, Thor didn’t need to hear his response to know he agreed.

“Your father is notoriously dedicated to Nine Realms, but I do agree with Frigga. He hasn’t been taking the time to balance everything out, lately. He’s stressed, he knows he should be retiring, but when have you ever known your father to want to hand over control? Particularly when it’s not the way he wants it to be.”

There was no running from it. Not really. Eventually, the topic of what Odin _wanted_ the succession plan to be always came up. At least, with Heimdall, Thor could detect the note that said his friend found it ridiculous.

“He’s having a difficult time coming to terms with the fact that _he_ has to amend the plan he made for you. He’s an old man, he’s set in his ways. He’s getting there, and I think, if there’s a silver lining to what’s happened to him, having you home will help ease him the rest of the way.” Heimdall paused, and Thor looked over at him. His friend was looking out, over the pond. Following his gaze, Thor felt himself tense up, just a little. Loki, and one of his old friends, Verity Willis, were standing and talking with Scott Lang. Scott’s teenage daughter, Cassie, was standing at his side, and Thor was almost pleased to see that she was giving Loki a scrutinizing look. As he and Heimdall watched, Wanda Maximoff and her twin, Pietro, joined the small group. Loki wasn’t doing _much_ talking, but that didn’t seem to matter; Scott was clearly making everyone smile and laugh with whatever it was he was saying.

“I think there’s a certain amount of conversation that needs to be had, in your family.” Heimdall continued, and Thor guiltily took his eyes off Loki. He’d always gotten the idea that Heimdall saw more than most people, and he wasn’t so keen to accept the idea that Heimdall had an inkling of what had happened between himself and Loki. “It might help things to resolve. I know it would help your mother come to ease.”

Thor nodded, crossing his arms. “I think you should take whatever place he wants me to have.”

Heimdall laughed, softly. “That’s a great honour, Thor.”

“I’m glad you think so, because I’m serious. You’ve been there for a long time. You know the company, you have a passion for it that I never will. I want to help people, I want to do good in _different_ ways.” Thor could feel this idea blooming inside his head as he spoke, as though it had simply needed Heimdall’s presence to properly flower. It made sense, and now that Thor could see it, it was hard to let it slip away without saying something. “I think my father will get that. I hope he does, by the time I go back to New York. But, either way, we both know you would do a far better job than I ever would.”

Heimdall didn’t argue. He didn’t say anything, really, but Thor could see the smile on his face, and laughed, clapping a hand on his shoulder.

“You agree.”

“It’s not... a _bad_ idea.” Heimdall agreed. “I would be interested to see what your father has to say about it.”

So, Thor thought, would he. Odin was fond of Heimdall, proud of him, and he’d mentored him as much as possible while Heimdall was just starting out. They all knew, whatever positions Heimdall had risen to, he had done it of his own accord, and he was more than capable of taking on things that Thor never could have or would have. Now that the idea was running wild in his head, Thor wasn’t about to let go of it.

They chatted for a while longer, but after a few minutes, Thor felt a hand on his arm and, when he looked down, he found himself looking into the smiling face of Wanda Maximoff. At some point, when Thor was determinedly not looking at the group she’d been sharing with Loki, she had broken away and found him.

And he wasn’t exactly _complaining_.

Wanda, though she was Loki’s close friend, had been someone Thor had always gotten along with. She was strong, opinionated, and loyal to Loki, but she’d clearly not taken that to mean that, if Loki was avoiding Thor, she would.

“Hey, how are you?” Thor asked, bending to return her hug.

Wanda squeezed him tight and, as they drew apart, answered. “Good. Really good. Life’s been busy. I imagine it’s been the same for you. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.” She added, turning to Heimdall with an appropriately guilty expression. “I just wanted to make sure I said hello to Thor before I lost him in the crowd again.”

Heimdall waved a hand. “Hardly an interruption. I’ve been taking up his time for a while, now. You two catch up. Thor, I’m sure I’ll talk to you again before I leave for the night.”

Thor watched Heimdall go, wishing he wouldn’t. Yes, he liked Wanda well enough, but Wanda was one of Loki’s best friends. Being left with her felt like being left with a bug, like she might report back to Loki if Thor said anything that was unfavourable to him.

He hated feeling that way.

“How’s New York?”

Turning back to Wanda, Thor swallowed his suspicions and shrugged, smiling. “Busy, like you said. Every day is different, some are harder than others. What are you doing now?”

What Wanda was doing now, Thor learned, was mediation. That was a career uniquely suited to her, he thought, but as they continued talking, he had to wonder if she wasn’t putting that to good use, right now.

It _would_ be in everyone’s best interests to pursue peace, and that didn’t just mean their immediate family. Thor was sure Loki hadn’t been the most pleasant person to deal with since everything had happened and Thor had come home. Wanda could very well be looking for peace for Thor’s brother _and_ for herself, by working out whatever disagreements the two of them were having.

Thor had to respect that. It was a very bold thing to try to do, especially seeing as Loki was unlikely to enjoy it.

No sooner had Thor begun to cotton on to what Wanda’s motive might be, than Loki appeared, joining them at Wanda’s shoulder.

“What’re you doing?”

His tone was quiet, almost accusatory, and Wanda clearly didn’t miss it any more than Thor did.

“Wow.” She commented, turning her smile on Loki. “Rude. I was just asking Thor how he’s been. _You_ don’t exactly like to share, so I have to go directly to the source.”

Loki clearly wasn’t buying that, and Thor felt a certain kind of solidarity with him. Knowing that Loki suspected Wanda had an ulterior motive made him feel like less of a paranoid jackass, but only by a little.

“Sure.” Loki responded, after a second. “Can you come help me? I can’t find Stephen.”

Wanda paused. “I’m talking to Thor.”

For the first time all day, in fact, for the first time since Thor had been in Loki’s apartment, Loki looked at him. His expression was cool, almost uncaring, and it matched well with the attitude he was currently putting out into the crowded back yard.

“You don’t mind, do you?”

Thor rolled his eyes.

“Go ahead, Wanda. Can’t deny the princess when he gets into one of these moods.”

Thor could see the annoyance flash in Loki’s eyes. He could watch, almost in slow motion, as Loki forced himself to bite his tongue and _not_ say something in response to Thor’s words, _or_ in response to the snort of laughter Wanda made. He was getting what he wanted, which was Wanda to his side, and away from his brother. If he meant he needed to suffer Thor’s ‘princess’ comment, he would. Thor watched them go, noting that Loki only waited until they were out of earshot to make a comment that clearly exasperated Wanda, judging by the way she tipped her head back and shrugged her shoulders.

Peace, it seemed, was going to be difficult.

That was fine. Thor had gotten himself a newer, potentially easier task, out of talking with Heimdall.

Heimdall deserved the recognition. He deserved to have his loyalty and hard work rewarded, and it was something he had, truly, spent his life and career moving towards. Unlike Thor, he had a good reason and a good background to take the position that Odin was attempting to force his middle son into. If Thor could convince him of that, it would make things a lot better, and a lot easier. For a lot of people.

The barbecue was, surprisingly, an enjoyable affair. Odin had been in good enough health, rested enough to be out with the crowd. The food had been spectacular, the company that much better. For a few hours, Thor thought that his mother had been able to forget about the stresses in her life. His brother and sister-in-law had enjoyed themselves and been congratulated over and over on the pregnancy. Loki had, Thor saw in passing, seemed to be having a fine time catching up with the little crew he’d run around with in high school. Thor had spent hours talking with old friends, and meeting the families those old friends had made.

By the time the party was winding down, Thor felt lighter than he had since the Coronet had pulled up in front of the house. The yard was still lit up by the dozens of feet of hanging lights that had been strung up, but the crowd had greatly dispersed. At some point, Loki had left, but Thor wasn’t bothered; it wasn’t like Val was sitting in the corner, watching him _avoid_ having that conversation. She wouldn’t know that there had been at least two separate times Thor could have initiated it. He didn’t feel guilty at all.

“It was really great to see you again, man.” Scott said, as Thor hugged him goodbye. Behind him, his fiancée, Hope, was chatting with his daughter Cassie. Thor couldn’t help noticing that she kept glancing his way, but it was unlikely to be anything. She hadn’t seen him since she was a little girl, and he’d been taken aback at how much _she_ had changed. He assumed the feeling was mutual.

“You, too.” Thor agreed. “I’ll have to do better at keeping in touch. I want to hear more about this company of yours.”

Scott laughed. “Yeah. You can come to San Fran any time, you know. Luis and the guys would love to give you the run down.”

“Long way to come, and I appreciate you did.” Thor said. “You guys have plans for the weekend?”

“A few,” Scott nodded. “Cass had a few sightseeing things she wanted to do. We’re going to go to Disneyland, too, before we drive back on Monday. Weekend trip, and it was well worth it for the food.”

“Dad.”

Cassie stepped up to Scott’s side, and gave him a meaningful look. For a second, Thor thought it was because he was talking too much, oversharing. Cassie _did_ look to be the age when she might be embarrassed her father was talking about their Disneyland plans. That thought was dashed a second later when Cassie nodded towards Thor and raised her eyebrows.

“Oh.” Scott said. “Right. Uh.”

Thor felt his own smile slip a little, but tried not to show it, tipping his head to the side a little. “What? Can I help, Cassie?”

“It’s – I mean, it’s nothing, probably. I don’t remember you ever saying anything to _me_, but we never really talked about him, so I don’t... I mean, I don’t _remember_, so I don’t _know_.” Scott was rambling. Thor smile slipped a bit more until he was frowning.

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh, Cassie just wanted to me to ask you, because I didn’t know, I never remembered you saying...” he was going in circles, again, and Thor was about to gently nudge him back on topic, but then Scott finished. “But, uh, is your brother a drag queen?”

Thor paused.

“Baldr?” He asked, with a laugh. “Ah, no.”

“No, no, the other one.” Cassie interjected. “And he _definitely_ is. I recognized him. I’ve watched a bunch of his stuff.”

Loki.

Loki was a drag queen?

“I, uh... I don’t know.” Thor answered, truthfully.

He didn’t know, but, suddenly, things were making sense. Loki’s interest in makeup when they were younger. His tendency towards the dramatic. The damn sewing machine sitting in his living room, and the secrecy he kept pulled tight over what it was he did for a living. If Loki was a drag queen, he wouldn’t want Odin to know. Odin hadn’t liked the mascara very much; what Thor knew of drag meant that there was often likely a lot more than mascara painted onto Loki’s face if he was doing that as his career.

“Well, that’s why _I_ didn’t know!” Scott said, clearly relieved that he hadn’t forgotten that someone his daughter apparently had seen videos of was someone he tangentially knew. “She just wanted me to ask, you know, and--”

“--Scott.”

Hope smiled at Thor, and then nodded at the front door.

“He’s got a lot of clean-up to do before he gets to go to bed, and a lot more goodbyes to say. Maybe we should head back to the hotel, yeah?”

Thor barely knew Hope, but he could have hugged her, tight, and thanked her for derailing that. He hoped she couldn’t see the dawning realizations on his face, but she seemed to understand that, with the party ending, and this new information dumped on him, Scott’s rambling way of saying goodbye might be a lot to handle.

They left, and Thor set aside what he’d just learned, throwing himself into helping to finish up the party, saying goodbyes and cleaning where and what he could. By the time the house was clean and quiet again, it was well after midnight.

Thor collapsed into his bed, exhausted, but with a mind that was running a million miles an hour.

Loki was a drag queen.

And, clearly, he didn’t want any of them to know.

Thor was woken up by the sound of his ringtone, much earlier than he would have liked the next morning. The sun was high enough in the sky to be shining through the gap in the curtains, and if he listened, he could make out the sounds of Karnilla speaking with his mother. It sounded like they were in the main hall, so it was likely Karnilla had just gotten there, which meant it wasn’t _that_ late, but late enough.

With a groan, Thor reached for his phone, noticing that the time at the top of the screen read ‘10:01’, before he noticed who was calling him.

He’d expected it to be family. Baldr, or maybe even Val, checking up on the promise he’d made and promptly tried _not_ to fulfill. Instead, the contact photo filling his screen was one of Thor and another muscular, blonde man, both of them in their firefighting gear from the waist down, grinning at the camera.

Thor didn’t hesitate to hit the answer button.

“Steve?”

“Hey. Hope I didn’t wake you. I know it’s 10 in the morning over there, but I saw you had a get-together last night. Might not have gotten to sleep at a decent hour.”

More than anything, it was a relief to hear Steve’s voice. It wasn’t that Thor hadn’t been happy to see everyone the night before, or to have Val to talk to about the difficulties he was having with Loki. Those things were all good in their own way. But, Steve Rogers was uniquely from New York. Steve was uniquely related to the firefighter side of Thor’s life. He was someone outside all the craziness that Thor was wrapped up in, right now. Apart from the family drama, and the Loki debacle. All he knew, and all he cared about, was that Thor was with family dealing with the fallout from his father’s unexpected but non-fatal heart attack.

It was almost _nice_ to know that Steve didn’t know what was going on, past that.

“You didn’t,” Thor lied, sitting up and pulling back the curtains. “I have to say, though, I wasn’t expecting to hear from any of you. Is everything all right?”

Steve laughed. “Uh, yeah. I think we’re all fine, here. Nothing out of the ordinary. I wasn’t going to call, but Buck... He kept saying he was pretty damn sure of what he was seeing, and I just wanted to get the answer so I could shut him up. Get him talking about something else, you know?”

Thor wasn’t sure where this was going, but he couldn’t keep from smiling at the note of fondness in Steve’s voice. Bucky Barnes – _James _Barnes, technically – was another of Thor’s uniquely New York friends, and Steve’s oldest friend. And fiancé. He was a good guy, not overly social, like Tony, but not borderline reclusive like some of Thor’s other friends. Bucky was easy to get along with, and, once you got to know him a little better, the ways he would open up could be surprising.

“Bee in his bonnet?”

“You could say that.” Steve laughed, and judging by the rustling on the other end of the phone, he was turning to look at Bucky. It was one in the afternoon in New York, so Thor could assume what they were doing. Having lunch in the firehouse’s cozy kitchen, discussing whether it was a decent time to bother Thor with whatever it was Bucky was wondering about. “He wants to know if you knew that your brother is a YouTube sensation.”

Thor felt the smile on his face slip.

First, it had been Scott, last night, with his social media star savvy daughter. Now, Thor was hearing from friends, unconnected to all of this, who knew. Friends who Thor knew liked to kill time, when they weren’t in the gym, by watching a lot of mindless videos on the internet. Usually it was compilation videos of cute dog rescues, or baking shows. YouTube series funded by big media companies that were just for fun, just to pass the time between calls.

He’d never really thought any more of it, but he really should have.

“Sorry?”

“Ah,” Steve voice, when he spoke again, sounded like he was holding the phone away from his face. “He didn’t know, Buck.”

“Hold on, how does _Bucky _know?” Thor asked, finding his voice. Sure, Thor knew Bucky had a tendency to get caught in what Clint called a ‘YouTube spiral’, clicking through suggested videos until something caught his interest, but this was far from what he’d expected.

“Here, just...”

There was a rustling, and then Bucky’s voice came down the line, “YouTube spiral. And hello.”

“Hi,” Thor responded, his smile coming back a little. “I just found out last night, actually.”

“Wow.” Bucky’s voice was almost flat when he said that, and Thor laughed. “So, that’s the weird one, right? The one that doesn’t really talk to any of you, anymore? I guess his whole drag career is keeping him pretty busy. He’s pretty popular, though.” There was a pause. “Something like a million subscribers or something. I’m honestly shocked you didn’t find out sooner.”

Bucky didn’t mean anything by it. Thor knew he didn’t. Still, he couldn’t help feeling a little rankled, frowning as the other spoke.

“We really _don’t_ talk.” He pointed out. Bucky hummed on the other end of the phone, an understanding sound. “And how did _you_ find out that my brother was this YouTube drag star?”

“Facebook.” Bucky answered. Another pause, and when he spoke again, the echoing quality of his voice let Thor know he’d been put on speakerphone. “You were tagged in a bunch of photos your older brother posted, Tony saw it and commented on it that he thought you’d have more of a tan by now, it hit my newsfeed, and there he was, in the photos. It was weird, man.”

“You’re telling me,” Thor grumbled, rubbing a hand over his eyes. “I’m hearing through all of these friends of _mine_ that they know about Loki being a drag queen. I don’t even know about it. I don’t think any of us do.”

This, really, was the only way Thor was going to learn more, though. Loki clearly didn’t want to talk about it.

“So, he’s just one of those YouTube... stars? Personalities?”

“Oh, no.”

Steve chimed in. “Yeah, I looked into it when Buck was trying to convince me the guy in the photos and the guy on YouTube were the same person. He’s a pretty big draw for his shows out there. Like, _big_. He has one soon, actually... Doesn’t he?”

His voice had come closer as he was speaking, and a second later he was saying, “yeah, tonight, actually.”

Friday night. The night Loki had been busy, so the barbecue had _needed_ to happen on Thursday.

There was a plan coming together in Thor’s mind.

It wasn’t a good one, and it probably wouldn’t end well, but he couldn’t have this information about Loki and just ignore it.

He’d sat on his hands for long enough.

“Whatever you’re looking at for his show tonight.” Thor asked. “Does it say when and where?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! The next chapter will be posted in a few days!
> 
> Come yell at me about Thorki, this fic, and other assorted nonsense on [Twitter](http://twitter.com/slamncram)!


	6. Daring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor knows what Loki does for a living, now. He knows why Loki wants to keep it a secret from their family. But Thor wants to see it for himself. He needs to.
> 
> For Loki, it's getting harder and harder to keep Thor out. This isn't what he expected when he saw the Coronet in the driveway, but maybe it's not so bad. Just maybe.

“I’m not going to push. You know that I know, better than anyone, that it isn’t my place to get involved in what’s going on between you two. But, Loki, I’ve kept my mouth shut for years, and so have _you_. And _Thor_. And look at where that’s gotten you.”

Wanda had become a staple in Loki’s shows. Not for the audience, but for him. She was usually there before, and almost always there after. Not in the crowd, but here, in his dressing room. Tonight, it was a little more spacious than he was used to, so he had all the room in the world, behind his dressing screen, to get himself right. Once upon a time, it had bothered him to know Wanda was there, chatting away, while he ripped pieces of tape and tucked himself back. Now, they had a system where she would pause for a second while the loud _rip _of the tape sounded, and then they would continue conversation as normal. It had become such a mainstay that when Loki travelled for shows, he almost missed having her there to give him the thumbs up once he’d pulled on his panties and tights.

They had a weird relationship, in a way. Loki had long since accepted that. What he wasn’t accepting, right now, was that she was talking about _Thor_ while he was slowly, carefully fitting himself – and all his padding and shaping – into tonight’s lacy, one-piece number.

“I don’t want to be rude, Wanda, I really don’t, but I think we’re a long way from any of what you’re saying being useful. Hold on, if this shit rips I’m going to absolutely lose it...”

From the other side of the dressing screen, Wanda sighed.

“I get it. You started fighting, immediately...”

Loki gave the screen a flat look, carefully fitting the waist around his own before pulling the front of his bodysuit up.

“He started blaming me, immediately.”

Wanda paused. “You _were_ kind of pushing him before anything happened.”

“Not the point.” Loki said, pulling everything up into place and reaching around his side to pull up the invisible zipper. “He went along with it. He _happily_ went along with it. And now, years later, he’s going to act like I seduced him--”

“--You _did--”_

“_\--_Against his will!” Loki finished, surveying himself in the mirror. So far, so damn good.

Drag had become his escape, in a way, from everything he’d been dealing with. The distance from his adoptive big brother that he’d, somehow, managed to develop feelings for, the issues at home with Odin, everything he’d been wrestling with in terms of his own sexuality and gender-expression. He’d started messing around with makeup in high school, and just kept going in college. He’d been going out to bars in dresses, without cinching or pads, and just _enjoying_ how it felt to indulge in wanting to be _that _version of himself. After everything with Thor, he’d thrown himself into his craft, perfecting the makeup, learning how to style and build his own wigs. He’d drawn on his very basic home skills from a half-forgotten middle school course and honed his sewing abilities until he was making his own gowns and costumes.

He’d put himself in front of a camera, and built an online persona that supplemented his gigs and elevated his prettily painted star to new heights, new gigs, requests to perform all over the country, and sometimes outside of it. He’d made a life out of his escape.

Tonight would be no different, either.

Turning back around, he picked up the emerald green corset waiting for him and walked around the dressing screen. Wanda stood up and waited while he turned around. It didn’t escape Loki’s notice that she was lacing him in quite a bit more aggressively than she usually did.

“Don’t make it look messy, darling.” He reminded her. Wanda snorted behind him.

“It would fit the mood of everything else in your life, lately. Messy with your dad, messy with Thor...”

“You have _got_ to stop saying his name.”

Loki didn’t need to see Wanda to know, as she finished lacing him in, she was smirking. “I forgot. You’re tucked. Mentioning Thor might lead to something painful.”

Turning around, Loki looked her over, slow, taking in the fold of her arms over her scarlet blazer, her perfectly filled brow raising under a loose lock of her curly, dark hair. “You think you’re funny.”

“I _know_ I’m funny,” Wanda countered. “Hurry up and finish. You’ve only got a little while before they start letting people in here. You’ve got a lot of people who have paid good money to see you, Miss Chief, don’t let your family drama ruin that for them.” She squeezed his hand, and smiled, moving towards the dressing room door. “Don’t forget your gloves.”

“I won’t.”

“Or your boots.”

Loki smiled. “Do you think I’m that incapable?”

Wanda shrugged. “I’ll see you after the show, all right? Kill it out there.”

Loki blew her a kiss, and she returned the gesture, slipping out the door into the back hall of the venue. Her absence suddenly made the room seem that much bigger, and that much more threatening. With a slow breath out, Loki turned back to the mirror, and lifted his wig from its stand.

As much as he didn’t want to think about Thor, right now, he couldn’t help it. His brother was in his life for the first time in years, and they’d come dangerously close to bringing up the event that had ruined their relationship, in an explosive way. They _needed_ to talk about it, some day, and Loki knew that. He hadn’t been through years of self-exploration and conversations that doubled as spotty therapy appointments to think that not talking about what had happened was the right thing to do.

If they ever wanted to have a relationship again, they needed to move past what had happened between them. Loki knew that, and there was a part of him that desperately wanted to move past what had happened between them.

But, tonight, that couldn’t be the first thing on his mind.

He had a show to put on.

This wasn’t something that Thor had ever done before.

Yes, he’d been to plenty of shows at bars and clubs, especially since moving to New York, but there hadn’t ever been a moment that he’d gone to a drag show _alone_. In fact, he’d only ever, previously, been to one, and that had been during Pride a handful of years back, and that had been with Bucky and Steve. There hadn’t really been the chance, since then, between everything else that he had going on.

Now, sitting outside the club where Loki’s drag persona, Miss Chief, was supposed to be hosting and headlining a show, Thor wasn’t sure how to get out of the Coronet and walk inside and act like this wasn’t, first of all, something he didn’t do often, and second of all, his way of finding out the secret his little brother had kept hidden from their family for all these years. Loki hadn’t invited him, not even through a chain of people. Thor had been invited by Scott’s knowledge, confirmed by Bucky’s, and then the scope of Miss Chief’s Instagram presence.

How their family had gone so long without knowing what Loki did with his weekends was beyond Thor’s understanding. Loki’s face was all over that account, often done up in flawless, impressive makeup, that much was true, but frequently bare, recognizable.

Minus the bright smile or teasing smirk he wore in some of the photos. Thor hadn’t seen anything like that in a long, long time. It had been jarring to flick through photos, one after the other, and see that. Loki, smiling. Loki, with bright stripes of white and green and blue around his eyes, and a cascade of thick black hair falling around his face and shoulders from a rather impressive wig. Loki, done up in full drag, head tipped off the side of a bed and eyes looking away, his waist cinched in a black corset, fishnet tights visible where he was pulling up his skirt, just shy of showing the goods.

Thor had been equal parts mystified and, he was hesitant to admit to himself, obsessed. He’d left the house without giving anyone a real idea of where he was going, and now he’d been sitting in the Coronet outside for nearly 45 minutes. The show had started 20 minutes ago. If he didn’t hurry, Loki – Miss Chief – was going to be on stage and off of it before he’d even paid his way in.

It was knowing that truth that finally motivated him. With a deep, steadying breath, he opened the car door and stepped out. Immediately, the music coming from the club became louder, more clear, a voice amplified by a microphone reaching his ears. Thor had spent enough time on Miss Chief’s social media this afternoon to know that the voice Loki affected when he was in character wasn’t too far off from his own, and it wasn’t the one Thor was hearing through the bricks now. With any luck, he wasn’t too late.

Thor paid his way through the doors after waiting in line a few minutes, and once he shuffled his way – with many ‘_pardon me_’s and ‘_excuse me_’s to people waiting at coat check – to the main door of the club, he suddenly understood exactly how it was that Loki was affording to live off of this. The club was _packed_, wall to wall with people, some dressed up, some in drag themselves, some just looking like this was a regular night out for them. Most people had a drink in hand, and were dancing along to whatever song it was that was coming over the speakers while a blonde queen in a shining, blue fringed dress performed. There was a stage set up, more or less at the front of the room, but with a wing that extended out into the centre like a runway, and that was where she was standing, grabbing the hands of fans before turning on impossibly high heels and strutting back up the stage.

There was a bar along one wall of the huge room, and around the edges there were tables set up, most of which looked occupied from Thor’s cursory view. He looked out of place, standing around near the doors. It was obvious he didn’t know exactly _why_ he was here. Knowing that made it easier for him to approach the bar, waiting while the bartender mixed drinks for a group in front of him. As he did, he listened to the conversation going on around him.

“--No, she’s the headliner--”

“--So we’re waiting until--”

“--It’s a drag show, it’s all good--”

“--Look at her _shoes. _I can’t walk in pumps, let alone those--”

“--Do you think there’s a meet and greet?”

It was a lot of noise, a lot of excitement. Thor heard Miss Chief’s name come up more than once.

Loki had always loved entertaining. Being the centre of attention and keeping people’s eyes on him wasn’t something he shied away from very often. Now, from what Thor had seen, he had found a way to do all of that. Entertain, gain attention, perform, keep all eyes on him. Express himself.

But, he still kept it a secret. Frigga didn’t know, Thor was sure of it. The same with Odin. If Baldr knew, Karnilla knew, and, therefore, everyone would have known. Somehow, they had all managed to miss that, of all of them, Loki was a star with a huge following, and a clear passion for every single thing that he was doing. Thor couldn’t help but feel guilty for not caring, for not trying to reach out and see and hear Loki, sooner. Now, trying to do it with the undertones they did, alongside the issues Odin was having, was difficult.

There was a table not too far from the runway off the stage that Thor was lucky to find unoccupied, once he’d gotten his old-fashioned from the bar. He sat down, and continued to people watch, between watching the performers on the stage. They were all so colourful, alive, bright smiles and high energy. They got the crowd, a press of bodies around the stage, into their performances, jumping, cheering and singing with them. It was an atmosphere unlike anything Thor had associated with Loki in years.

He was more eager than he knew to see how Loki fit into this world.

“How did you end up here?”

The voice was close, directly over his shoulder, and Thor jumped in spite of himself, and in spite of knowing who the voice belonged to. With a guilty look, he turned to see Wanda Maximoff, standing behind him with her hands on her hips, her dark hair a mane of tight ringlets around her face. She looked formidable, and suspicious, but not _angry_. Loki, Thor suspected, might be all three if he saw him here. If Wanda told him, Loki might have him kicked out. He’d kept this secret for so long, Thor suspected the last person Loki wanted to find out was _him_.

“My friend’s daughter recognized him.” Thor explained. Wanda pulled out the other chair at the table, sitting down and sweeping her hair over her shoulders. “And then another friend called and asked if I knew my brother was a social media... queen.”

The look Wanda was giving him was cool, guarded. She was Loki’s oldest, closest friend, one of the few that hadn’t avoided Thor altogether. They, Thor thought, had been friends of a kind as well, but he didn’t blame Wanda for guarding Loki’s secret the way she did, and the way she was right now.

“And did you?”

Thor shook his head. “Not until they sent me a link to his – her? - Instagram. And told me that there was a show tonight.”

Wanda leaned forward, folding her arms on the table. “And you decided to come.”

It wasn’t a question. It didn’t even truly feel like a threat.

Thor nodded.

“I know he hasn’t told anyone. The way you’re reacting is making it obvious that _you_ don’t know how much you should be telling me. But, Wanda...” Thor sighed. There was a lot that needed to be said, and it needed, truly, to be said between himself and Loki. “With everything else going on, I don’t want to pretend I don’t know him. I _want_ to know him, again. He’s my brother, and I lo--”

“_Are you ready for a little chaos?_”

The crowd around them cheered and, before Thor could really register that the queen on stage had just finished her performance and was hyping the crowd up for someone else, people were moving. Getting on their feet, pressing up closer to the stage. Across the table from him, Wanda had propped her chin in her hand, and the smile on her face served to make him a _little_ nervous.

“_Are you ready for a little magic?_”

The crowd cheered again, and Thor looked round at the stage. The blonde queen in the fringed dress was backing up down the runway. It was a saunter, smooth, one hand on her hip, the other holding the microphone to her painted mouth.

Wanda’s hand touched his, and Thor looked back.

“_Are you ready... for Miss Chief?_”

The crowd exploded in cheers and Thor was forced to look away from Wanda when the music started again. The queen on stage turned and began a strut back, off stage, and as she did, another queen passed her.

Immediately, Thor’s attention was caught.

She was wearing a long black wig, half of it pulled up, the rest of it flowing over her shoulders and down her back. Black lace stretched down her arms, and over breasts covered in a black bra that barely seemed to be holding them in. Her waist was defined by the emerald green corset cinched around it, her hips by more of the black lace bodysuit that covered her arms. Her legs were bare, except for the tall, high-heeled black boots she wore, cutting her way up the stage. Sheer black fabric that Thor assumed had to start under the corset flowed behind her, giving the whole look an almost regal appearance, at odds with the fact that she very much looked like the sort of woman found awaiting her lover with a surprise after a long week apart.

Her face was beautiful. The makeup around her eyes was just the right amount of dark to still let them shine, her lips full, dark, and terribly kissable. Cheekbones that looked capable of cutting if you got too close were highlighted and catching under the stage lights as she lip-synced the words to a song Thor was only vaguely paying attention to. Something about being greedy, he thought.

He wasn’t sure.

His mouth felt a little dry, and he couldn’t take his eyes off the stage. He was amazed. Stunned.

_That_ was Loki.

For years, Loki had been doing this. Perfecting his craft, honing his performance. Building himself a brand that wore the face of this confident queen. As she moved around the stage, Miss Chief reached out hands covered in delicate looking cocktail gloves that matched the green of her corset, winked and played coy, blowing kisses between breaths. Those same hands pushed the sheer fabric back from her hips as she moved, drawing Thor’s attention to the high-cut black fabric that disappeared between her legs. There shouldn’t have been any room left to the imagination, but, as Thor had discovered, Loki was _very good_ at bringing Miss Chief to life.

And that was precisely what was happening, in front of Thor. As Miss Chief went to her knees, finishing the song, the crowd broke into applause, and Thor did the same. Miss Chief was an entertainer, a performer, and he was just as lucky as anyone here to be seeing her do her thing.

With the song over, Miss Chief pulled her legs around in front of her and stood up again, grinning bright and blowing kisses as she moved to the side of the stage. When she came back again, she had a microphone in hand.

“Aren’t you all a loud bunch?” She asked, sounding a little breathy. “Not that I’m complaining. I like it when my lovers are vocal.”

The crowd cheered and laughed, and Miss Chief winked, the picture of coy. Thor rubbed a hand over his mouth, watching the way she moved, every step confident, every flick of her wrist natural. In one moment, he was seeing Loki at his most comfortable, and most on display, and it was behind the beautiful mask of this persona he’d created over the years, in the dark.

It was beautiful. It wrapped itself around Thor’s heart and squeezed, even while his eyes traced the silhouette of Miss Chief’s body, never leaving her as she bent down at stage-side to hold out the microphone to someone in the audience. Thor wasn’t _really_ listening any more. He was observing.

Wanda seemed to notice that, and, with her hand on his again, she pulled his attention. It took a bit of work. Loki – Miss Chief – was bantering with the crowd, and another queen had come on stage to join her. The audience was laughing, having a good time. Loki was _good_ at what he did.

“It makes him happy.” Wanda said, once she knew she had Thor’s attention again. “You see that, right? And you know why he kept it to himself.” When Thor nodded, she patted his hand, and Thor took that as a signal that he could look back at the stage.

Miss Chief was on her feet again, and when the music started this time, it was a song Thor knew much better, Whitney Houston’s _I Wanna Dance With Somebody_. The microphone was gone from her hand, and she was alone again, but she didn’t seem to need anything but her own abilities to keep the crowd’s attention. It didn’t matter that a good chunk of the audience seemed young enough not to have ever really heard the song outside of these walls, or not on a regular basis. People were singing along with Miss Chief, dancing along with her. Parting like the sea when she made her way down the runway and dropped herself from the edge to the floor, spinning through the crowd, spending a second with strangers and fans as she made her way back to the stage-side stairs.

If Thor was a little jealous, he didn’t show it.

At least, he tried not to, much like he tried not to show exactly how impressive he found it when Miss Chief dropped herself into the splits at the end of the song. This time, when the crowd cheered and applauded, he was on his feet with them, Wanda at his side.

She waited until the applause had died down and Miss Chief was on to bantering with the audience again to get Thor’s attention.

“Come on. I can get you backstage.”

It wasn’t the sort of offer that Thor had been expecting, nor was it the sort of offer that he was sure he wanted to accept. As much as he trusted that Wanda wasn’t attempting to lead him into trouble for Loki’s sake, Thor didn’t want to lose this vantage point. Watching Miss Chief from here, he could see just about everything, and there was something so mesmerizing about seeing Loki entirely in his element, comfortable in this persona, that he couldn’t help but find attractive.

Still, it wouldn’t be a smart thing to refuse the offer that Wanda was making. It may very well be the only chance he got to possibly speak to Loki about this.

If Loki would even speak to him. There was no promise but it would be stupid of him to turn this down. With a smile and a nod, Thor moved around the small table, taking his glass with him and following Wanda through the crowd. It was easier, with everyone gathered so much closer to the stage, to make their way across the floor, around the back and through a side door by the main entrance to the ballroom.

Immediately inside that door stood club security, a typical bouncer. Tall, muscular, thick-necked with his hair close-cropped. He looked intimidating and for a second, Thor thought he was about to not only send him out of his hallway, but eject him from the club. Next to Thor, Wanda was short and slender enough to almost go entirely unnoticed.

She didn’t, however. A half-second after Thor and the bouncer made eye contact, his dark eyes slid down to her and his brick faced expression broke into the sort of smile that would make anyone hoping to get back here think he was a pushover.

“He’s with me, Antoine.” Wanda explained, smiling herself. “He’s a guest of Miss Chief’s, I just thought it would be easier for him to see her after the show if he was watching from backstage.” Wanda lied easily. Thor certainly hoped Antoine wouldn’t be nearby if or when Loki caught sight of him; it would be immediately obvious that he wasn’t an expected guest, nor was he a very welcome one.

For now, though, Antoine was accepting of it, with a wave, he sent them down the hallway behind him, and Thor moved quickly to keep up with Wanda, whose heels were clicking on the tile flooring as she hurried down the hall.

“I don’t want you to miss too much of this.”

Thor laughed lightly. “I think I’ve missed a lot of this, don’t you? Up until this morning, I didn’t even know Miss Chief existed, much less that she was my younger brother.”

“That’s true,” Wanda agreed, opening a door at the end of the hall. The music, now playing something that sounded like early 2000s pop, got a lot louder. “But you _really_ don’t want to miss this. Candyman and her closer for tonight will be particularly good.”

Following Wanda brought Thor up a small set of metal steps. At the top was a small group – some of the drag performers that had come onstage before Loki – and a few others, watching and sipping drinks. One of them, though, stood out immediately. Even if Thor hadn’t already known him, he would have caught his eye.

Because he was wearing what _looked like_ a red cape, _and_ he was hurrying over to them with an air that felt, even to Thor, a little menacing.

“What’s _he_ doing here?”

“Hello to you, too, Stephen.” Thor greeted, cheerily. Instead of staying put, though, he slipped around Loki’s friend, moving so he could see the stage better. It wasn’t a terrible vantage point; he could still see Miss Chief, standing partway down the runway and almost, it looked like, flirting with the audience in that area while hse sang. As soon as Wanda had said the title, Thor had known what song this was. Christina Aguilera’s Candyman, which explained the faux-flirty attitude.

“I invited him back here.”

“Does he _know_ who is on the stage?”

“Do _you_ know you look like a wizard?” Thor commented, not taking his eyes off the stage, hands in his pockets as his eyes tracked Miss Chief’s progress back up the runway. “Anyway, why do you think I’m here?”

“No idea. He didn’t want any of you knowing.”

“That much is obvious. But, I know, now. And I’m not leaving, so it doesn’t really matter if you give yourself _more_ premature grey or not, _Steve_, but I guess he’s going to be finding out that at least _one_ of us knows. And he and I will deal with that when we deal with it.” Looking away from Loki for a moment, Thor met Stephen’s eyes. The other didn’t look impressed, but he wasn’t fighting back. “Deal?”

Stephen rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, looking back towards the stage. “I’m not happy about it, but yes. Deal.”

“See? I always knew we could get along if we just tried.” Thor commented, looking back himself. The next song was just starting, a song Thor had known, and had heard Loki playing before. Back then, Thor hadn’t imagined that it meant Loki would one day be getting himself done up in drag, hip bouncing in time with the music while he counted off the rules in Marina and the Diamond’s How to be a Heartbreaker. Thor had always assumed it was just Loki’s affinity for somewhat off-the-main-charts music and playful lyrics.

Perhaps that was how it had started, but now it was culminating in Loki owning the stage as Miss Chief, twirling, stepping, moving in time with the music until the quieter, calmer bridge. Then she was lowering herself in a crouch, gloved hand trailing fingers over her own jaw and over her neck to her collarbone, lipsyncing the words without missing a syllable. As it continued, she laid back on the stage, stretching her arms over her head. It was a choice that didn’t make sense to Thor until she threw her legs up and over her own head, rolling and lifting herself back into a stand in time with the music picking up again, one of her impressive heeled boots kicking up into the air before she strutted out down the runway, caught up in the final chorus of the song.

It was captivating. Miss Chief was a part of Loki as much as the black hair and knowing smirk, Thor was seeing that now. He was also seeing the adoration and love that Loki got like this, the crowd cheering and clapping and dancing along with him as he came back their way, stopping dead centre on the stage with one hand on his hip.

Looking over her shoulder at the crowd, Miss Chief mouthed along with Marina’s final whisper of the song, ‘at least, I think I do.’

And then, without any warning, her eyes moved from the cheering, applauding crowd to where they stood in the wings. It was dark, over here, darker than it was on stage, but there was no doubt in Thor’s mind that Miss Chief’s eyes met his, and in the second before she looked away and turned back to the crowd, arms raised in reception to their applause, he saw recognition and trepidation.

If Thor left now, they didn’t need to confront this. Miss Chief was crouching at the edge of the stage, touching hands and laughing and smiling. Thor could be gone before she was on her feet again and headed this way. They could ignore that he was ever here, never confront if, never talk about it.

That had been the issue all those years ago, though, when Loki had left the frat house, and Thor had chosen to run to New York.

This time, he needed to stay, and that was why, when Miss Chief blew her parting kisses to the crowd and headed their way, Thor stood his ground.

“You can still leave.” Stephen offered, both of them watching Miss Chief approach. It was obvious her stage face was still on, but Thor had no doubt of where she was looking. Straight into him, like she was trying to read his mind.

On his other side, Wanda clicked her tongue and leaned forward to look around Thor at Stephen. “You know if he leaves it’s just going to be more of the same melodramatics from Loki about how Thor doesn’t care enough to give him time to talk.”

Whether her words were _meant_ to cut him deep or not, Thor felt them settle in his chest, like a well-placed knife Wanda had put there, courtesy of his secretive brother.

“I’m not leaving.”

Miss Chief was close enough, by the time those words left Thor’s mouth, to hear them, and Thor watched as both her artfully filled eyebrows raised in surprise and, by the set of her mouth, skepticism. She didn’t say anything, though, slipping around them without giving Thor another look. For a moment, Thor was sure that brush-off meant that he wasn’t welcome, and he _should_ leave. That Loki felt it would save them a lot of stress if he took off now.

Instead, Miss Chief paused, accepting a water bottle from Wanda, and looked Thor over.

“Give me five minutes to at least untuck. Then you’re welcome in my dressing room.”

Those were words that Thor didn’t entirely understand, and not just because he couldn’t imagine the contortions going on in Loki’s, admittedly, very convincing pelvic area. He nodded, and Miss Chief did the same, before turning and heading back for the hallway he and Wanda had come through earlier, past Antoine. Thor had seen doors along it and assumed they were closets or storage rooms, not dressing rooms.

When Wanda came out of one of those doors ten minutes later, however, and waved him inside, Thor found that he hadn’t exactly been _wrong_.

Miss Chief’s dressing room wasn’t all that much bigger than a storage closet, but it was more welcoming. Along one wall was a long mirror with a counter mounted in front of it and a line of exceptionally bright bulbs, and in one of the corners there was a dressing screen. As he closed the door behind himself, Loki came out from behind it, Miss Chief’s wig and clothing gone, his own hair loose and falling over his face while he scrubbed his fingers through it, face still painted the way it had been when she’d been on the stage. He was wearing a pair of joggers and an oversized sweatshirt, and looked about as comfortable and as different as possible from the picture that had been on stage only fifteen minutes before.

Thor didn’t say anything. He wasn’t sure how to start, and watched as Loki sighed and dropped himself into a chair in front of the mirror, pushing his hair back from his face. In the mirror, his brother’s eyes met his, and Thor let out a slow breath.

“So,” Loki started, opening the black case that had been left on the counter. From it, he pulled a small packet that he opened and took a makeup wipe from. “How did you find out?”

“Scott’s daughter follows you.” Thor answered, honestly, matter of factly. “He asked me last night if I knew what you did. Then some friends of mine in New York called because they’d seen you tagged in photos from the barbecue with me, and recognized you.”

Loki hummed, and brought the wipe up to his forehead, rubbing over it, no longer looking at Thor and instead watching his own reflection. “Did you tell anyone else?”

Thor frowned. “No. It’s kind of obvious you didn’t want us to know.”

Loki didn’t answer, instead continuing to wipe the makeup from his face. Thor watched as he carefully, slowly removed the long, dark false lashes from his eyes and then took out another wipe to begin swiping at them. It seemed like so much work to undo, Thor couldn’t begin to imagine getting into it in the first place. It looked like a long and arduous process.

The fact that Loki went through with it and, in fact, seemed to love it, wasn’t something he was missing in all this.

“You were gorgeous.”

Loki paused, eyes flicking to him in the mirror before he went back to wiping underneath them, removing all traces of black and white from his lower lids.

“I mean that. You were so... untethered. Free, and it was obvious how much you enjoy it. You were...” Thor paused, searching for words and trying to find a way to keep himself from going too far or saying too much. He’d been too afraid of actual honesty with Loki for years to know how to handle it when he desperately wanted to give it out.

Loki seemed to pick up on that. Without looking at Thor, he spoke. “I love drag. I found it just a little while before... everything between us happened. It was an escape for me, after that. I got to get into someone else’s head, be someone else for a little while. I wasn’t Loki, who had made out with his big brother and managed to help destroy their relationship. I got to be Miss Chief, confident, sexy, smart, a little mysterious.” He set the wipe down to blinked at himself in the mirror. Apparently he was happy with what he saw because he dug into the kit again and pulled out a little white tub. Screwing the lid off, he dipped his little finger in and came away with what Thor assumed was moisturizer. While he watched, Loki rubbed it into his skin and continued.

“The more I did it, the more I loved it, the better I got. The more comfortable I felt. Doing drag... It unites all of me, in a way. I don’t know if you understand that, but when I do this, I feel like I get to be the version of me that isn’t the one you and mom and dad and Baldr and everyone else are used to seeing.” Loki closed up the kit and pulled a hair tie from around his wrist. Reaching up, he gathered all of his hair back into a small ponytail, and then turned to look at Thor.

It was the first time they’d been alone together since Thor had been to his apartment. If Thor was being honest, and he felt inclined to be so, right now, he half-expected this to turn into a fight at any moment. Thor had intruded on something that Loki had kept private, for himself and for only those that he had deemed worthy of knowing. It hurt to know that he didn’t count among the thousands who followed Miss Chief’s social media, and to know that Stephen ranked above him, but Thor tried to understand.

They had hurt each other. Deeply. This was part of how Loki had healed from that and, from what he was saying, how he had learned to reconcile all the different parts of himself. This wasn’t _about_ Thor. Not really.

“When I do this, I don’t have to worry about being pissed off at you. So, you’re lucky, right now, because I’m still not. I know I _should_ be. You snooped your way into finding this show, and Wanda, that backstabber, slipped you backstage when she knew it would throw me off. I should be beyond pissed right now...”

Thor braced for it.

“But I’m exhausted, and what I _really_ want to do is the shit we used to do when we were kids.” Standing, Loki walked behind the dressing screen. He came out a moment later with a garment bag in one hand and a gym bag over his shoulder.

“And, uh... What’s that, exactly?” Thor asked, apprehensive in spite of himself. Loki could be unpredictable when he was angry, and even if he was saying he wasn’t, that didn’t really _mean_ anything.

“Grab my kit. Did you drive here?”

Picking up the black case from the counter, Thor frowned, looking closely at Loki. There was a light in his eyes that Thor hadn’t seen in a long time.

“Yes.”

“Perfect.” Loki moved towards the door, not waiting for Thor to catch up as he pulled it open. “Let’s go up to the cliffs. Sit on the hood and talk about shit.”

There was a second pause, and Loki looked back.

“If you want. I can get Wanda to take me home, instead, if you didn’t want to--”

“--No. Let’s go.” Thor answered, hurriedly.

Maybe it would end in a fight, but Thor couldn’t deny how badly he wanted to spend time with Loki and talk to his brother right now. It had been too long, and this moment, right now, felt too fragile to ignore in hopes that it would simply come around again when it wasn’t nearing midnight and he hadn’t just found out that Loki was a damn good, stunningly gorgeous drag queen as a career.

If it ended in a fight, though, at least the moment wouldn’t be wasted.

When they had been teenagers, and Thor had been given access to the keybox that held the keys for every one of Odin’s very nice cars, they had spent a lot of time away from the house. They would drive into the city, out to the beach, basically anywhere they could drive.

One of the spots that was a favourite haunt for both of them, though, had been the cliffs. They were about halfway between the house and the city, overlooking the lights of Los Angeles with the sky spread out over top. Thor had vivid memories of coming out here with his brothers to hang out and talk. He’d tried his first cigarette here, and Loki had come out to them for the first time while they’d been watching the sun go down. As the years had gone by, and Baldr had gotten more involved in Nine Realms and less interested in the time wasting his younger brothers were doing, it had become a place Thor and Loki shared. They’d watched sunsets while trading a joint back and forth, and waited hours to feel ‘safe’ to drive home. It had been stupid, and even if nothing had ever happened, Thor was much more proud of the times they had called Baldr to come get them. He’d always come, sometimes with Karnilla in tow, and driven them home.

Tonight, it was just the two of them. Thor didn’t have any beer in his car, Loki wasn’t hiding a joint – that he knew of. It was very possible there was something in the case or gym bag that sat in Thor’s backseat. He wasn’t asking, though, as he cut the Coronet’s engine.

Loki didn’t make a move to get out of the car. Neither did Thor.

Without the engine rumbling, and without the quiet lull of the radio, it fell horribly silent in a way that almost inspired Thor to say something stupid, just to break it. He was grateful that Loki broke it with a sensible question, instead.

“Would you kill me if I sat on the hood?”

Thor smiled. “No. You’re wearing sweats, you wouldn’t scratch the paint.” He paused. “And _I’m_ not dad.”

Getting out of the car, Loki’s quiet reply came back to him. “No. You’re not.”

The passenger side door shut with a little more force than was necessary, and Thor bit back his urge to tell Loki not to slam his doors. It was easier to get out of the car and close his door with _just_ enough force, and hope Loki took notice. Starting a fight right now meant Thor would either have to leave Loki up here or drive him back to Los Angeles, spitting mad.

Neither option was really appealing.

Loki had made himself at home on the hood of the car. His legs were stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles, and he was leaned back against the windshield, arms behind his head, gaze on the stars. They were such a rare sight, this close to the city, but tonight, when Thor looked up, he could see them winking back. It felt like a good omen. It felt like luck.

Thor settled next to him, looking down over the city instead. The lights were bright, people awake and going about their business like it wasn’t the middle of the night and sleep wasn’t something they should aspire to. It wasn’t like Thor could really judge them; he was sitting up on the cliffs with his estranged brother, wanting to ask about his drag career, or, really, _anything_ to get to know him again, and not sleeping. He didn’t exactly have the high ground.

“Wanda knows.”

Loki’s voice was quiet in the gloom, and a little unexpected. Thor had been ready to let him control this, because, for the moment, it was enough to be alone with Loki and not be fighting. Now, though, he turned, looking Loki over with a bit of confusion. His brother wasn’t looking at him, his head was still tipped back, though his eyes were now closed.

“Well, I assumed she did. She was the one that took me backstage _and_ let me into your dressing room.”

Loki was laughing before he’d even finished speaking.

“I’m – _no_, Thor, not the drag. Of course I know _you know_ that she knows I do drag. I’m not Tyr, I don’t miss context clues like that.” Loki was sitting up, now, moving so he was sitting cross-legged, looking over at Thor. His lower lip was caught between his teeth, a sign of nervousness, that he was weighing the wisdom of what he was sharing. “She knows what happened between you and I, back then.”

Thor blinked. “Oh.”

“That’s it?” Loki asked, raising an eyebrow. “No ‘I can’t believe you told someone, Loki’, or ‘what does she think of me now, Loki’? I’m surprised. I would have thought it would set you off for sure.”

Thor shook his head. “None of that.”

“All right, then how about ‘you should have gotten a therapist, at least they’re not allowed to tell anyone else’? That seems like a go-to, as well.”

“Oh, you should _absolutely_ have a therapist, I’m not denying that.” Thor laughed, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, looking over the edge of the cliff, a good ten feet from the front of the car. “I think we could all use a therapist.”

“You’re not wrong.” Loki agreed. “I spent so much time as the ‘foster’ kid, I never really saw us the way other people see their siblings, you know?”

This was the most they had ever spoken about things without it ending in a blow-up. Hesitantly, carefully, Thor edged forward with his words, “you were never really different from us, though. You were my brother, the same as Baldr, so what does that say about me?”

Loki was quiet for a second, and Thor knew it was because the gears in his head were turning, analyzing every word that Thor was saying to try and suss out where he was coming from. It was a bit infuriating, really. He was giving Loki everything he could, there was no need for the long deliberation.

“What I mean is... At home, yes, we were all brothers. We were Baldr, Thor and Loki. We were raised together, we played together, we fought... a lot.” Thor looked over to see Loki smiling, pulling at a loose thread on his pants. “But to the media? To everyone outside the family? It was ‘Loki, the foster child’, ‘Loki, the adopted one’, ‘Loki, the charity case’. It’s enough to make a kid feel _othered_ somehow, you know? And then there was the whole _gay_ thing, and... what happened with us.” Loki looked up, meeting his eyes. “It’s not something I ever dealt with, or ever confronted. We didn’t exactly grow up in a fully functional family. A little therapy might have gone a long way.”

It wasn’t something that Thor had ever, really, thought about. To him, Loki had always been exactly what he was now: his brother. A brat, a drama queen, a pain in the ass, but his beautiful, talented, whip-smart brother. He’d never seen Loki as different. Not until they’d started sending those suggestive texts back and forth, the ones he played off as being a teasing older brother. Not until Loki had come to visit that one weekend. Thor hadn’t fully realized he saw Loki differently until Loki had kissed him, that night.

And even then, it wasn’t that he saw him differently to Baldr. He still saw Loki as his brother and, admittedly, that was terribly messed up. But Loki caught his attention, all of it, in ways few other people ever had. In ways, Thor was scared to admit, even to himself, he didn’t think anyone had. Loki was different in a distinctly _Loki_ sort of way, and that had made what they’d done, and how Thor felt about it – the terror and exhilaration – that much more intense.

“Poor Wanda. And Val.” Thor said, finally. “We aren’t paying them enough to be our therapists.”

Loki paused, for a second, a look of shock on his face.

Then he punched Thor in the shoulder.

“You _fucking_ asshole!” He was laughing, just a little, and that was the only reason Thor knew he wasn’t in trouble. “You let me sit here and think you were going to be _pissed_ I told someone, and you told _Val_?”

Thor laughed, dodging another punch. “Uh. Yeah? C’mon, you deserve to suffer a little.”

“A little?” Loki’s voice had a shrill note to it, and he shifted on the car turning so he was on his knees by Thor’s hip, shoving at his shoulder and slapping at Thor’s hands as he brought them up to defend himself, both of them laughing. “I have been suffering for _years_, you twat!”

“Ohhhh, poor Loki,” Thor sing-songed, laughing at the sound of annoyance Loki let out. “He’s the _only one_ who _ever_ suffers!”

“You’re _such_ an arse,” Loki laughed, reaching out to tap his cheek, not hard. Just a little whack. Nothing like the fistfights they’d gotten into as kids. “Why do I put up with you?”

“Because you love me.” Thor answered, automatic and chipper, without thinking.

The change in Loki was damn near immediate. It wasn’t a shift from happiness to anger, but he sobered. His eyes traced Thor’s face, and, slowly, Thor felt his smile falling.

“Hey, uh--”

“--Shut up.” Loki said, softly.

It had been a long time since Thor had listened to one of Loki’s orders without argument or eye-rolling, but he did, now. He did, because there was something going on in Loki’s head that he couldn’t place, but it felt familiar.

The air felt familiar, too.

Like it had the night Loki had slipped into his bed.

Wordlessly, Loki shifted, moving forward and throwing his knee over Thor’s hip. Slowly, carefully, with the grace he’d shown on the stage tonight, he settled, putting himself in Thor’s lap.

“I’ve been drinking.”

“Me too,” Thor replied, immediately. It wasn’t entirely untrue, because he’d half-finished the drink he’d bought at the show.

“It’s an explanation.” Loki continued. He was warm, heavy in Thor’s lap. That alone had his heartbeat speeding up, but it was the way Loki was leaning in that had it skipping. “If you don’t push me off, right now...”

Thor could have.

This was what had started all of their problems, years ago. It was what he’d brushed down, buried, and worked so hard to ignore. Loki and everything about him had been the type of drug that Thor didn’t need in his life, so he’d tried to cut him out. He’d spent years avoiding him, keeping a safe distance from him, because really, this was bad, and it was wrong, and it was the fact that it was taboo that wouldn’t let him forget it. That was all.

When Loki kissed him, all those years seemed like such a damn waste.

This was the sort of kiss that had kept him awake for days after Loki had left. This kiss what the sort of thing that had made him wake up, half-hard in bed. This kiss had crept into his lazy afternoon thoughts while he’d been training to be a firefighter, and he’d gone home from rigorous training to lock himself in his room and rub himself off, slow, thinking about that kiss.

Thor was in no hurry to run from it, this time.

This time, when Loki kissed him, slow but confident, Thor kissed him back. He ran his hands up Loki’s thighs, over his ass and under his sweatshirt, and kissed him back, slow, electric currents running under his skin at the way Loki parted his lips for him. They only ran that much faster when Loki grabbed his wrists and slid his hands away from his bare skin, pulling away for a second. His green eyes were dark, a little tentative, but bold, and when he leaned in again, Thor let him push him back against the windshield.

His hands moved to Loki’s waist, instead, keeping him close, letting Loki have the control the way he wanted. Their kisses were slow, deep. They were the sort of kisses that had Thor’s chest fluttering, his stomach flipping, his blood running hot. He swiped his tongue slow over Loki’s upper lip, and Loki’s whimper said he was feeling the same.

It felt like hours. Hours of slow kisses, of Loki’s hands curving against his neck, thumbs brushing his jaw. Of fingers curling in his tee, and hours of barely managing not to pull Loki against him, crush him in his arms. It was slow, careful, but Thor felt vulnerable. Laid bare in front of Loki more and more with every kiss.

In reality, it was only a little more than ten minutes before Loki spoke again.

“No more.” He murmured, kissing Thor gently.

“Then stop,” Thor replied, feeling all that much more vindicated when Loki kissed him again. His tongue was soft, brushing over Thor’s, lips closing over his lower one before he spoke again.

“We can’t go further than this.” He said, again, kissing at the corner of Thor’s mouth. “We _can’t_.”

Thor was hearing the words, but they weren’t making sense. Maybe his brain had gotten slower with his age. Loki wasn’t shoving him off, wasn’t running away, but he was telling him this was where they stopped.

“We can’t?”

Loki sighed, kissed him one last time, and then sat up in his lap. His lips were pink, a little swollen, and there was colour high on his cheeks and creeping up his neck.

“We need therapists, Thor.” He responded with a little smile. “And we’ve been drinking.”

An explanation.

Thor understood. He should, he thought, be angry. He should be hurt, feel played with. But, as Loki squeezed his hand and then slid off the hood, he couldn’t feel angry.

Something had changed.

“Can you take me home?” Loki asked. “I’m not angry, this isn’t... revenge. I’m just tired.”

Thor nodded. “Yeah. I’ll take you.”

The drive to Loki’s apartment was quiet. Loki was all but curled up in his seat, comfortable, clearly. Thor could feel his eyes on him every few minutes, assessing. Gazing.

“You keep looking at me.”

Loki hummed. “You kept kissing me.”

It was a bold, frank truth. Thor had kept kissing Loki, because he’d desperately wanted to keep kissing Loki. Sitting out there, at the cliffs, a place they’d shared growing up, after midnight, with no one but the stars to see, he would have kept kissing Loki for as long as his brother would have let him.

And he had.

Something had shaken loose, tonight. Seeing Loki as Miss Chief, being let into his secret, had been one thing. Being able to talk about their childhood, about things that may have led to the way they felt about each other, and not getting into a fight? That was another.

Not fearing Loki sitting in his lap, kissing him, both of them being half-hard by the time Loki put a stop to it? That was a whole other ball game, and Thor wasn’t sure he had the brain power, right now, to understand it.

They didn’t talk, again, until Thor was pulling up on the street outside Loki’s building. Loki stepped out and ducked back into the rear seat, grabbing his gym bag, garment bag, and makeup case. It looked like a precarious armful when he straightened up, digging his keys out of the side pocket of the bag.

“I can help you bring that all up, you know.” Thor offered. “All you have to do is ask.”

Loki smirked. “That’s sweeter than almost everything you’ve said since you got back.” He knocked his hip against the back door and it swung shut, again, harder than Thor would have liked. He still didn’t say anything. “But, if I let you do that, it means you have to come into my apartment.” Loki met his eyes through the open passenger side window. “And I think we both know what might happen if I let you in.”

Thor let out a breath. “The same thing that happened the last time one of us slipped into the other’s bed.”

“Something like that.” Loki nodded. “I’ll see you later, I assume. Good night, Thor.”

Loki made his way over to the door to his building, turning after he’d slipped the key into the lock.

“And thanks for coming to my show.”

Thor nodded, giving Loki a smile, and watched while he disappeared into the entryway, and then into the building. He waited another minute, until the light came on in the window Thor knew belonged to his little brother. Then he pulled away from the curb, and headed for home, Loki’s kiss still buzzing under his skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! The next chapter will be posted in a few days!
> 
> Come yell at me about Thorki, this fic, and other assorted nonsense on [Twitter](http://twitter.com/slamncram)!


	7. Resolutions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Odin throws a wrench into things, but there are ways around even the most stubborn of wrenches. Decisions need to be made, and conversations need to be had.

The mediator’s office where Wanda worked was always so bright, with its sheer curtains and wide, open windows. Light flooded into it and made it feel like a calm and safe place, and Loki assumed that was the whole point. The funny thing, though, was that Wanda’s apartment wasn’t much different from that.

On Saturday morning, with the sun high in the sky, it was already coming through the rounded windows on the east side of the apartment, flooding her stunningly black and white kitchen with light, and making Loki squint as he sat at her island and nursed the cup of coffee she’d presented him with. Ten minutes ago, she had opened the door, in sweats and an old t-shirt, her dark, unruly hair gathered up in a pile on top of her head, and found him on the other side.

She’d given him one slow look-over and then stepped aside with a little sigh and, “I have lunch plans with Pietro at 1, so you have two hours to be melodramatic before I have to kick you out and start getting ready.”

It was the sort of greeting Loki had expected. He hadn’t really thought about the fact that he hadn’t given her an explanation last night. All she’d seen was him waving, carrying his things and leaving with Thor. He and Thor alone, especially lately, had led to nothing _but_ melodramatics. Still, Loki had glared at her until she’d slid the mug of black coffee his way and continued on making her morning latte with the outlandishly expensive barista coffee maker her twin had bought her two birthdays before.

“So... You two left together last night, so I _assume_ that meant he hadn’t said anything too dickish in the dressing room.” Wanda started while she carefully and slowly added steamed milk to the mug in front of her. “Not that I expected him to, but if _you_ were being a handful, he probably wouldn’t have held back.”

Loki sipped his coffee, held the mug between his hands, weighed his options.

“We made out last night.”

The rest of the steamed milk poured from its stainless steel cup into Wanda’s mug, leaving a foamy looking blob at the top, but Wanda didn’t seem to be paying attention to the fact that she’d ruined the artistry of her morning drink. She was far too busy staring across the island counter at Loki, her dark eyes wide, the wheels in her head obviously turning, trying to work out if she’d _really_ just heard what she thought she’d just heard.

“I’m sorry?”

Setting his own mug down, Loki shrugged.

“We... made out. A lot. We went out to the cliffs to talk, and next thing I know, I’m in his lap--”

“--_You_ initiated it?” Wanda interrupted. “You... Okay, I _knew_ there was still something going on there. That wasn’t a one time and then it’s over, you got the weird kink out of your system thing at all, was it?”

Loki sighed. “Can you let me talk?”

Finally lifting the unphotogenic fruits of her labour, Wanda answered, “go on” and took a slow sip from her mug.

“We went out to the cliffs. We were talking. Just, talking, you know? I wanted to spend some time with him, try and act normal, like we aren’t on the edge of having a knock-down, drag-out brawl at any moment. And it was fine. We were actually talking about things, for once. He was listening.” At the raise of one of Wanda’s eyebrows, Loki continued, “_I_ was listening. We were being open. And then he said something, and I...”

“You?” Wanda prompted after a second. Loki had to hand it to her; anyone else might have been freaked out about this. Disgusted, disbelieving, not wanting to hear it and certainly not willing to get Loki to work through it. Wanda was a good friend, and Loki really needed to try and remember that more often.

“I... got in his lap and kissed him. A lot.”

Across the counter, Wanda blew out a breath, an expression on her face that clearly said she was shocked but not surprised. Reaching up, she pushed a loose lock of hair back.

“And then what?”

“And then,” Loki said, “I stopped him. I wasn’t going to keep... making out with my brother on the hood of his car. You probably don’t know how long it’s been but it’s been a _while.” _He didn’t say more, but it was obvious he didn’t need to. The way Wanda looked towards the ceiling like she was looking for strength was enough.

It was, really, probably too much to admit how badly part of him wished he hadn’t exercised control, and found out what it was like to fuck in the backseat of Thor’s car. Wanda had barely started drinking her latte, and as much as Loki would enjoy bringing a little chaos into their morning, as he’d already noted, she was a good friend. It was probably best not to squander that.

“What the hell did he say that got you... like _that_?”

_Because you love me_.

Just four simple words. Not even ones that Thor had particularly meant to hit him any kind of way, Loki was sure, but they had. After last night, the way Thor had looked at him, the way he’d listened when Loki spoke, the praise he’d given him unprompted, it had been hard for Loki to hear those words and simply ignore them. There was no way to, because they were, unfortunately, terribly true in more ways than one.

It wasn’t something Loki had wanted to admit to Thor last night. It wasn’t something he wanted to admit to Wanda, now. Hell, he wasn’t even up to admitting it to himself.

“I don’t even remember.” He lied, easily, shrugging one shoulder and lifting his mug again to distract from the fact that he was lying. Wanda might catch on, but it was likely she wouldn’t. With everything that Loki had already told her, he was pretty sure it was believable that he’d simply forgotten specifics of what had come before he’d kissed Thor again.

It was Wanda’s turn to sigh. She shook her head, looking over towards the windows, at the sun coming in and the clear, cloudless sky above.

“I always knew you weren’t over him.”

Loki frowned. “Hey.”

“Don’t ‘hey’ me.” Wanda retorted, looking back his way. “I might not entirely understand where you’re coming from, or what you two have going on, there, but I do understand that there’s a reason you were so hurt, and why that hurt hasn’t ever _really_ become something more like shame or shock that either of you ever went for that, even for a few minutes. That’s the way some people would react to it.”

“So you’re saying I’m a freak.”

“No.” Wanda answered, firmly, and Loki, who had been trying to hold an expression of offence, had to fight a little grin. “I’m saying... Your relationship with Thor, whatever it is, it’s complicated, but the way you feel towards him? Clearly hasn’t gotten any simpler. It hasn’t... moved on. You haven’t. You still feel something for him.”

She paused, watching Loki drink his coffee.

“We both know it’s true.”

Loki took another, slow sip.

“You can try to lie to me but the plain fact is you’ve basically told me already that you’re not over him so no amount of silent treatment is going to convince me you don’t have a big gay incestuous crush on your strapping big brother.”

_That_ made Loki sputter, barely managing to put his mug down before he spilled the coffee.

“You don’t have to put it so bluntly!”

Wanda’s eyebrow raised, this time accompanied by a smirk that made it obvious she knew that she was getting to him. “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought what I said was less blunt than saying you very badly want to have your own Lannister situation with Thor. Would you be Cersei? You strike me as a Cersei--”

“--Wanda!” Loki was laughing.

That was a surprise to him in a way he suspected it _wasn’t_ a surprise to Wanda.

This whole issue with Thor had been something he’d spent so long trying not to talk about, trying to pretend wasn’t there. The few times he had spoken about it, he’d come away feeling raw, heavy, and with quiet anger dogging his footsteps like some kind of horrendous shadow.

Maybe it was the fact that Thor hadn’t pushed him away. Loki wasn’t sure. Something was different, though, and he had to admit, he liked it.

“So, what are you going to do?” Wanda asked, when they’d calmed down from their laughter. “You two _need_ to talk about this.”

“I know.” Loki agreed. “Even more, now. I was thinking about going over tonight, seeing if he wanted to take Mjolnir for a walk. Everyone knows he loves that dog more than...”

Loki’s phone was buzzing against the countertop, the screen lit up, filled with a picture of a smiling, regal looking woman. His mother, whose name was written along the top of the screen along with the words ‘_incoming call_’.

It was hardly ten in the morning. Why was Frigga calling him?

“You should answer that.”

Wanda didn’t need to tell him twice. Feeling a block of ice slowly sinking down into the pit of his stomach, Loki picked up his phone and hit the ‘accept’ button, bringing it up to his ear.

“Mom?”

Frigga’s voice was reedy, frazzled on the other end. She sounded like she’d just tamed her tears, or was fighting to keep them at bay.

“Your father’s being rushed to the hospital.”

When Thor had come home to be with his family and help while Odin found his way back to health, he hadn’t expected any of the things that _had_ happened to have come about. He hadn’t expected to fight with his father, to witness Loki arguing with their uncle. He hadn’t thought there would be a barbecue, or that he would end up dealing with the loose ends of what had happened between himself and Loki. He certainly hadn’t expected to find out what Loki’s career was and why it was such a secret, and he’d never counted on things going the way they had out at the cliffs the night before.

But, and perhaps most of all, he hadn’t expected to be here.

The hospital had beautiful gardens. They were supposed to be a place where healing patients and their families could go to relax and enjoy nature. To spend time together and chat.

Right now, Thor and Frigga were just using them to breathe.

When he’d woken up that morning, Thor’s first thought had been getting breakfast, and then calling Loki. He’d considered that there was good reason for him to wait on the second part. Loki had been in control, last night; he’d dictated what they’d done, where they’d stopped, and exactly how close to his apartment Thor had been allowed to get, which had been not very far at all. That was, Thor supposed, a good thing, because they needed to talk, more, about what was going on between them.

Still, he hadn’t been feeling particularly patient, so he’d thought that once he’d had breakfast, and a shower, he would give Loki a call and see if he wanted to get lunch, or dinner, or spend some time together at all.

He’d only been halfway through his omelette when any semblance of a game plan was thrown out the window by Frigga calling down the stairs to call 9-11, because Odin was having chest pains and finding it hard to breathe.

That had been less than two hours ago. Odin had been rushed to the hospital, and he was stable, now. The doctors were running a few tests, but it seemed unlikely that it had been anything but, perhaps, a warning. Frigga had told Thor what they had been discussing when Odin had complained that his chest hurt.

Them. The company. The future.

Thor was starting to get sick of it, but he couldn’t say that. Not out loud, unprompted, to his mother. Frigga was sitting on one of the benches in the gardens, her eyes closed and her head tilted back to the sun. Odin was resting, and seemed fine, and the doctors had asked that they be given room, so she’d done just that, and taken Thor outside with her. Baldr had been more than content to continue roaming the grim halls of the hospital. Thor suspected that he had some issues of his own to work through, but Thor wasn’t about to force him to do it.

“Darling.”

The sound of Frigga’s voice caught his attention, and Thor stopped in his own pacing of the worn garden paths, looking back her way. Frigga was smiling, patting the spot on the bench next to her.

“Come here, sit with me. Talk to me. We’re both spending far too much time in our own heads, I think.”

Thor had to smile. She’d always been a terribly perceptive person, not that she needed it right now. With everything that had happened in the last few weeks, it was obvious that all of them were spending too much time in their heads. She was right, and Thor wanted nothing more than to sit with her, right now.

Once he’d settled next to his mother, he put an arm around her shoulders, pulling her into his side.

Frigga laughed. “You know, I remember when I used to be the one that did this with you. You weren’t so big, back then. Pudgy, of course, but you were a boy. Such a sweet boy, too.”

“I was a little shit.” Thor corrected her, and Frigga laughed again.

“Well, I won’t deny that. You and your brothers could be little terrors. But, you all grew up all right. Look at you. Look what you’ve done, and what you are doing.” She looked up, meeting his eyes, and Thor’s heart ached to see how tired she looked, even through the smile she was giving him, and the pride in her eyes. These last weeks hadn’t been kind to her. “I know that you all argue and bicker about the things your father wants for you.”

Thor stiffened, just slightly. Right now, knowing what they had been discussing before Thor had called 9-11, the last thing he wanted to think about was what _Odin_ wanted for them.

“I’m proud of you, though. You’ve made your own path. You’re being the man that you were always meant to be.” Frigga continued, patting his hand. “You save people’s lives. You make a difference in a way that... running the company never would. And I know that he might not want me to say something like that.”

It was one thing to say all of this to Odin himself. It was another entirely to hear it come out of his mother’s mouth. She was his mother, yes, his first best friend, his champion, his protector in a way his father hadn’t been. But, she was always Odin’s wife. His best friend and confidante, the one who he stood behind and who was supposed to stand behind him.

This wasn’t the first time she’d expressed something different to what Odin had said, of course. She was a strong-willed, strong-minded woman, and she was perfectly capable of wielding her own opinions rather than adopting those of her husband.

It was just that when it came to the company, Frigga had tended to stay out of the succession discussions. She didn’t insert herself in the arguments, and, by default, Thor had thought that meant she was on Odin’s side more than his own. Odin was her husband, after all, and the company he had built would be a fine inheritance for her sons. It only made sense that it would be the thing she would want for them.

Rather than that, though, it seemed she felt the opposite.

“He wouldn’t want you to say that,” Thor answered, a little incredulous. “You’re right. So, not to be rude, but why are you?”

Frigga smiled, looking away from him, and back at the gardens. They really were beautiful, and in full summer bloom. “Because you’re my son, and what I want for you, more than anything, is for you to be happy. I can tell that firefighting does that for you. It might not be safe, and it might not be something you can do forever, but when you talk about it, like you were talking about it at the barbecue, I can tell you love it. You love being able to help people, to educate and save people. It’s your calling, and you chose it, and that’s more important to me than any archaic succession plan your father might have, anyway.”

This was the sort of thing Thor hadn’t expected to hear. Hearing it, now, with the two of them sitting in a quiet garden, surrounded by flowers, trees and the summer heat, he almost didn’t believe it.

“It’s the same for Loki. Baldr? Well, he might be more suited to it. He seems to enjoy what he does for the company, and with the baby on the way, it makes sense that he’d want to stay with something more stable. But you, and Loki, you were never made to be pushed into suits and forced into boardrooms. You were made for more, and I want you both to get out and live that. I think your father is starting to understand that, too.”

Thor opened his mouth to ask about that, but hurried footsteps made him wait. It was likely just another patient or family member, or maybe nurse, rushing from the gardens to get to someplace else in the hospital, attend to something else. Even though he’d known that Frigga had called Loki while the paramedics were loading a very conscious and very disgruntled Odin into the ambulance, he still hadn’t quite put together his younger brother with this location.

So, when Loki came around the corner of a large hedge a second later, looking a little frazzled himself, it took Thor a second to place him.

He looked good, all things considered. He was wearing a pair of jeans with ripped knees, and some worn looking boots, with a black jacket open over a heathered green tee. He looked comfortable, relaxed, and not nearly as carefully put together as he had every time Thor had seen him up until after the show last night.

At least, that was how he looked until you got to his eyes.

For the first time, Thor understood how Loki must have been, the night this had first happened, and truly been _serious_. For all the animosity between Loki and Odin, Thor could see, crystal clear, that his brother did care about their father. He worried, just as much as Thor, just as much as Baldr.

“Hi, sorry I’m late, I had to go home from Wanda’s and get my car, and drive here, and it was typical shitty Saturday traffic, and – well, I saw Baldr in the hospital – mom, how are you doing?”

The words all came out of Loki in a rush, explanations that didn’t really finish off and concern that was so genuine Thor felt it in his gut. The two of them shared a look for a second or two, and in that look they explained enough.

_I’m all right, we can talk later_.

“Take a breath, dear,” Frigga said, sweetly, shifting on the bench to make room for Loki on her other side. “It’s all right. It wasn’t really that much of an emergency. I think it’s an echo, or from stress and it’s all in his head.” Thor caught the little smile she gave her youngest. “The tests will tell us for sure. Coming here was just a precaution.”

Loki nodded, his gaze on the ground. His hands were clasped in front of him, between his knees, and Thor watched, eyes caught on his black nails, as he squeezed them together and then loosened his grip. “I know, I just...”

Looking up from Loki’s hands, Thor saw the glaze of his eyes and without a second thought dug into the pocket of his leather jacket, pulling out the crumpled little packet of tissues he’d been keeping in there. He hadn’t had to use more than one or two from it, himself, but now he handed it across Frigga, wordlessly, meeting Loki’s eyes while her hand ran up and down his back.

“Thanks,” Loki said, quietly, taking the packet and opening it up. “Sorry. It’s been a long week.”

Frigga smiled and looped her arm over his shoulders, pulling him in, a mirror of the position that she had just been in with Thor. “I know, love.”

“Hey, why don’t I go find Baldr?” Thor offered, after a few long seconds of silence. “Hospital food isn’t great but we can all sit and eat, and then see how dad’s doing. I think we could all use that.”

To his surprise, Loki was the one who nodded first, before Frigga was doing the same.

“That’s a good idea. Why don’t you go find him, and come get us here? Makes it easier than all of us trying to meet in the cafeteria.”

“Sounds good to me,” Thor agreed, standing up. Frigga reached for his hand and he took hers squeezing it before promising to be back soon.

It was probably deceitful of him, but he wasn’t in any hurry to go find Baldr. The stress of everything had somewhat muted his appetite, and his curiosity was far hungrier than his stomach. He walked around the corner of the hedge that Loki had come around, and then further, following the paths until he could hear voices.

His mother and Loki, a little muffled, like they were trying to be quiet. They weren’t looking for eavesdroppers, and it was a little rude of Thor to be just that. Still, he had an inkling of what they were discussing, and when he could make out their voices, he wasn’t disappointed.

“--just said the same to Thor. I’m proud of you, no matter what you do.”

“I was never even a real consideration for Nine Realms anyway.”

“You were, but even if you weren’t, that doesn’t matter to me. You’re my child, I love you, and I’m proud of you.”

There was a sniffling sound, and Loki’s quiet, annoyed laugh, the one he made when he was embarrassed by the strength of his own emotions. Something tugged in Thor’s chest, and he backed away, walking down the paths again. It wasn’t his place to be listening to the things Loki and Frigga talked about. That was for Loki, and for Frigga, and for them alone. He was supposed to be finding Baldr, not eavesdropping on their conversation and waiting to hear what was said, and that was what he got back to, leaving the gardens and going back into the mint-walled, quiet hospital hallways.

Part of Thor hoped, though, that one day Loki would at least tell Frigga what it was he was doing. The passion that he had, and how successful he was at it.

Thor had no doubt, that even if she was shocked, which he was beginning to think might be unlikely, Frigga would still be what she was telling Loki she was, now. Proud.

When they were teenagers, Loki used to be the one who would sneak the drinks. He was the smallest, the quietest, and the sneakiest by far. Once their parents had gone to bed, summer nights were for the Borson boys, and they made sure to make the most of it by breaking into dad’s liquor cabinet.

Odin had to have known, in hindsight, Loki thought. He wasn’t as crafty about things as he thought, and while he tried to make it so they were only drinking a little out of a few different opened bottles every time they broke in, eventually, Odin must have noticed things were a little off. Entire bottles would go missing, or bottles he didn’t remember opening would be half-way to three-quarters of the way finished by the time he got to them.

Maybe he never cared because it was never the _really_ good stuff. Maybe he was just happy his boys were being boys. Loki didn’t know then, and he still didn’t know now.

He did know, however, that a few things had changed.

For one, they didn’t need to sneak their drinks. They weren’t underage, anymore, and they were perfectly capable of purchasing their own alcohol if they needed or wanted it.

For another, they _really_ didn’t need to sneak their drinks if Frigga was soundly asleep upstairs, and Odin wasn’t even home.

The doctors had determined that what had happened was likely nothing more than a sort of echo, or a warning from Odin’s body it take things easy, for real. The stress was getting to be too much for him, and his body needed him to calm down. Still, they had elected to at least keep him overnight for monitoring, and though Odin hadn’t been thrilled about that, everyone else had been. Frigga wanted to make sure that everything was all right, and as much as Loki, Thor and Baldr felt the same, Loki knew for a fact his brothers were on the same wavelength as him.

They all wanted to talk, and drink, without the guilt of knowing their father was asleep, recovering from a heart attack, just above them.

“I grabbed the good shit.” Loki announced, setting the selection of bottles he’d taken from the liquor cabinet on the dining room table. Without waiting, he pulled a bottle of bourbon towards himself and opened it up, pouring a generous amount into his waiting glass. Only then did he offer the bottle to Thor, who took it without hesitation, his fingers brushing Loki’s as he did.

Next to him, Baldr picked the bottle of the same scotch he’d been partial to since his first year in college, and dragged it towards himself.

“Anyone else exhausted?” He asked, and Loki snorted.

“Terribly. I guess that’s all part of the gig, though.”

“The parents getting older gig?” Baldr asked, measuring out his drink carefully. He recapped the bottle and then glanced from Loki to Thor, eying their rather full glasses. “I guess you two will be crashing upstairs, tonight.”

Thor raised his glass, then took a hearty swallow. “Have been since I got here, but I guess Loki is going to be moving back into his room for a night, huh?”

Loki glanced at his own full glass and shrugged. “Probably. I don’t really feel like driving back tonight, anyway. Today was... a lot.”

It was. On top of his conversation with Wanda, which would have been enough, there had been all the family stuff. _All_ the family stuff. It had started with Frigga’s phone call, and nothing had really felt easier since then. Loki had half-walked, half-run back to his apartment from Wanda’s, even though she’d offered to give him a ride. Then he’d gotten his Prius and turned out onto the road just to sit in traffic, mildly freaking out more than he’d thought possible.

Something about Odin being rushed to the hospital a second time was much more horrifying than the first. The first time it had been confirmed, absolutely, that he’d been having a heart attack. This time there was no confirmation, no absolutes, and it had come at a time when Loki thought they’d finally been slipping into a safe zone, where his recovery would be nothing but a gentle uphill climb rather than the abusive round on the stairmaster it had been until then.

All of that had been enough, but then Frigga had been... well, his mother.

Thor had left them alone, and for once Loki hadn’t felt like it was because he wanted to get away from him. If anything, Thor had left them alone because Thor had known what Frigga wanted to say. She had, by her own admission, _just_ finished having a heart-to-heart with him, after all, it only made sense that Loki was the next in line.

And he had been. Frigga had wasted no time in letting him know that _she_ was proud of what he was doing, even if she didn’t know what it was. She hoped, of course, that it wasn’t illegal, and they’d had a laugh at that before she’d given him a stern look and insisted Loki be honest with her about the legality of what he was doing for his career.

Looking back on it, now, Loki probably shouldn’t have laughed and said ‘some places in the world, it sure isn’t, but it absolutely is here’, but Frigga had taken it, happily.

The rest of the day had been wandering the hospital’s halls, talking to doctors, waiting to talk to doctors, talking to nurses, and _not_ talking to Thor. Originally, that had been one of the things he’d thought he _might_ spend his Saturday doing. By the time the nurses ushered them out of the hospital for the night, the only things he’d discussed with Thor were related to the hospital, their father, or whether or not he needed a bathroom break.

Loki had hoped, after they’d all had dinner – Indian takeout picked up on the way back to the house – and Frigga had gone to bed, they might finally be able to talk a little.

That had been when Baldr had said he needed a drink, and suggested Loki still knew the combination to the cabinet’s lock.

He did, and as much as he wanted to kick Baldr out and ask Thor if they could talk, now that it seemed their father’s life wasn’t on the line, Loki needed a drink, too. So, now, here they were. Sitting around the dining room table, all exhausted, taking swigs from their glasses and talking in quiet turns.

“So,” Thor said, finally, after they’d all been silent for a few minutes. “What are we thinking? You both heard what the doctor said. Dad needs to retire. He needs to start taking it easy, not just for his sake, but for mom’s. And I think it’s finally starting to get through his thick skull, but you know that means he’s going to be pushing us to give him answers. To tell him what _our_ plan is for Nine Realms.”

“_Fuck_ Nine Realms, frankly.”

Loki was surprised by his own outburst. Sure, he was thinking it, but he hadn’t planned to weigh in. It wasn’t really his place, when it came down to it. He was the youngest, and Thor was the one who needed to step up, here. Baldr was, at least, already on the payroll.

His response, however, caught Baldr so off-guard that his oldest brother coughed, pounding on his chest and caught somewhere between trying to catch his breath after swallowing his scotch wrong, and trying not to laugh too hard. It was such an unexpected reaction that Loki couldn’t really find any words. All he could do was meet Thor’s eyes for a second, just to confirm the other was just as thrown off as him, before trying, “uh, Baldr, you okay?”

“Y-yeah,” Baldr coughed, standing up and wandering away into the kitchen. There was the sound of cupboards opening and the sink running, and Loki frowned across the table at Thor, mouthing, ‘what did I do?’

“Opened your mouth,” Thor answered, openly, shrugging and finishing off the bourbon in his glass in one mouthful. He reached for the scotch next as Baldr was coming back into the room, taking swigs from a glass of water.

“I agree with Loki.”

“See, that? That, I didn’t see coming.” Thor said, setting the scotch back down and looking between Baldr and Loki. “You _do_ remember that you work for Nine Realms already, right?”

Baldr gave Thor a flat look. Loki glanced between his brothers, taking a small sip of his bourbon.

He _really_ wanted to know where Baldr was going with this. If Thor interrupted again, he might just kick him under the table.

“Yes, I do. And I’m perfectly happy, doing that, and working in the position that I do, but I know that it’s not for you. It’s not for _either_ of you.” Setting his water glass down, Baldr went back to his scotch, taking another mouthful before he continued. “Did you two talk to mom, today?”

“Yeah.” Thor answered at the same time as Loki nodded.

“Then you know where she stands on this. She’s proud of you, happy that you’re both doing well and happy. And so am I. I know I don’t say that enough, and I might not know... what the _hell_ it is that you do, Loki--”

“--I dress in drag and perform all over the country as Miss Chief. I have almost 800 thousand followers on Instagram and about 100 more than that on YouTube.”

The words were out of his mouth before Loki had really thought about the fact that they were bubbling out of him. Once they were out, though, there was no taking them back. He knew that, from the slack look on Thor face, to the confusion on Baldr’s.

Up until last night, no one in his family had known what it was that he did for a living. Now, at least three people did.

“I told mom earlier. She kept saying... she was _proud_ of me, and all these other things, and I didn’t feel right not telling her. And now _you’re_ using the p-word, so, fuck it. There you go, Baldr. Your baby brother is a drag queen.”

“And a smoking hot one at that.”

Loki hadn’t quite been prepared for Thor to say that, or for the way Thor winked at him when he did, but his own surprise was nothing compared to the way Baldr gaped.

“_You_ knew?”

“I found out last night. Scott’s kid recognized him so I did some digging.” Thor smirked at Baldr. “I would have told you but he was keeping it a secret and all, so I went to his show on my own. You’re probably blacklisted, so you’ll never get in, but it was _quite_ the show.”

“I’m blacklisted from your shows?!”

“No, you’re not blacklisted-- Thor, shut up!” Loki was grinning, laughing. For the first time in years, he felt safe being open with his brothers. He felt all right with them knowing him in a way he’d been shutting them out of for a long time. It was a _good_ feeling. “Listen, I’ll let you know sometime when I’m performing and you can come if you want, but as much as I _love_ being the centre of attention right now, we _were_ talking about dad and the company, and you were in the middle of a _very_ moving speech.”

Baldr sighed and shook his head. He looked, for a second, like he wanted to ask more questions, but instead he took another mouthful of his drink, finishing it off, and then picked up where he’d been cut off before.

“My point is, you’re both happy. And successful. And I don’t think that you should have to give that up when there’s a perfectly good succession plan already in place. I know that dad hasn’t been thinking about it, because he’s been so damn hung up on this being a family affair, but... I mean, he’s family, too.”

Across the table, Loki saw Thor smile. He leaned back in his chair and tucked his arms behind his head, nodding. “So, you thought of him, too.”

“Heimdall?” Baldr asked.

Thor nodded.

“What, you’re saying dad should give over Nine Realms to Heimdall?” Loki asked, a little annoyed that he felt like he was having to play catch-up. “Just so I’m on the same page, since apparently I got cut out of the Borson telepathy.”

“Now you know how I felt when _Thor_ knew what you did for a living, but I--”

“--Yeah, Lo.” Thor cut in, smiling at Baldr when he looked his way, scowling. “What do you think?”

Loki wasn’t sure why he hadn’t thought of it before, to be honest. Maybe it was because he’d never paid that much attention, or he hadn’t cared, but now, sitting with his fingers curled around a glass of bourbon, thinking about it, it just made _sense_. Heimdall had all the right qualities that were needed to lead that company, and he was already happy working for it. He was high-ranking, intelligent, smart, and still kind. And he’d been Odin’s right-hand for longer than Loki could remember, even moreso than Tyr had been.

“It just makes _sense_.” Loki answered, finally. “He’s the most qualified, the best person for it, and he’s earned it.”

“Oh, he’s earned it.” Thor agreed. “He’s been there even longer than Uncle Tyr, I think. And he cares about the business and the people. He’s the best candidate for the job. I don’t think he’d turn it down, either.”

“I don’t think so,” Baldr agreed, rubbing his chin. “I would. I don’t want that position any more than either of you. I love the company and I want it to succeed but... I can’t run it. I’m not built that way.”

“Heimdall, though,” Thor started, “Heimdall’s the man for the job.”

“Now, you just have to convince dad.” Loki pointed out, finishing off his glass and standing. “I saw a really _nice_ looking bottle in that cabinet. No idea what it was, but I’m going to try it.”

The liquor in the nice bottle turned out to be another scotch, one that they all had a glass of, chatting and refilling their glasses from the other bottles. It had been a long, long time since they’d been together like this. All three of Odin Borson’s sons, sitting at his dining room table, talking and laughing. Being civil.

They talked about more than the Nine Realms Corporation. They talked about Thor’s job in New York, about how hard it was to be a fire fighter but how rewarding it could be. They talked about Loki’s drag career, and watched two different videos on Baldr’s phone that had him gaping. They talked about Baldr’s future baby, and the kind of father he wanted to be. They talked about the stupid things they did when they were kids, and laughed until even Baldr had tears in his eyes.

It was a miracle that Frigga slept through it, but by the time the clock was hitting 2 AM, Karnilla was in the driveway, waiting for Baldr to come out.

“This was really good,” he said, hugging Loki tighter than he had since before they’d all gone off to school. “I’m really glad we all talked.”

“Me too,” Loki answered, honestly, stepping back so Thor could step in. They hugged each other, tight, and Baldr promised to be by the next day, as soon as he’d ‘slept off what you idiots talked me into’.

Loki stuck his head out the door and called, “Karnilla, I _swear_ it was his idea, not _mine_. For once!” and he and Thor watched while the lights of their car travelled around the ring driveway and out to the road before they closed the door.

As soon as Thor locked it, and re-engaged the alarm system, a wave of exhaustion hit Loki so hard it knocked a yawn out of him. One of those yawns that made tears prick in the corner of his eyes, and left him swaying a little on his feet.

Thor laughed, low and close, and ran a hand through his hair. “You need to sleep, don’t you, little brother?”

Loki glared at him, as much as he could. “Don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Thor agreed, turning and pulling Loki against his side, herding him towards the stairs. “I’m beat. You going to sleep in your room?”

That was the wisest thing to do. It was familiar enough that Loki wouldn’t panic when he woke up, and it wasn’t sharing a bed with Thor. Loki nodded.

“Yeah. Mom had it all made up so I’m just going to go crash on my old bed.” He smiled at Thor when they reached the top of the stairs. “I’m sure you’re happy. Didn’t you give me shit for being the one who kept driving back to the city at night instead of staying?”

Thor smiled at him, guiding him the rest of the way down the hallway. “Yeah, I did.” They stopped in front of Loki’s old bedroom door, and Thor let him go. “I’m glad you’re staying.”

Loki laughed, quietly. “Me too, because I am in _no_ fit state to drive.”

Thor’s laugh was just as quiet. “Goodnight, Loki.”

Instead of leaving him at that, though, Thor hesitated for just a second. It was enough for Loki to think he was about to say something else, and he was just about to ask ‘_what_?’ when Thor leaned down and kissed his hair.

Warmth spread through him from that spot, immediately, rivalling the warmth that the alcohol had left with him. Thor smiled again, and Loki smiled back.

“Goodnight, Thor.”

His old bedroom _was_ pretty much exactly as he remembered. Bed in the same place, curtains the same shade, all his old furniture in its places. Loki sat on the bed, his jeans stripped off and in a pile on the floor, and looked around, remembering all the time he used to spend in here. The full length mirror where he used to stand and admire his makeup that he’d done in secret was still in the corner of the room. One of the knobs on the top drawer of his dresser was sagging a little; it had never been tightened, even though he’d known it was loose when he’d been a teenager. Clearly Frigga hadn’t thought there was much of a rush to get it done either.

It was his old bedroom, so it was familiar, and that was comforting.

But Loki couldn’t stop thinking about the room across the hall. It had been almost 15 minutes since he’d come back from swishing with mouthwash in the bathroom and glanced at Thor’s closed door. As familiar as his own room was, Loki was aching for comfort.

He shut his bedroom door when he left. The less questions the better.

But when he opened Thor’s, and closed it behind him, Thor didn’t even jump. He didn’t ask who it was, or roll over, or even look, but Loki could tell by his breathing that he wasn’t asleep. Not yet.

Loki crossed the room in his bare feet in four steps, and lifted the sheet, slipping under it in his tee and briefs. Thor didn’t roll over, still, but when Loki curled up behind him, and slipped his arm around Thor’s waist, Thor’s hand found his, and squeezed.

“Hey.”

Loki smiled, and closed his eyes.

“Hey.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! The next chapter (last before the epilogue!!) will be posted in a few days!
> 
> Come yell at me about Thorki, this fic, and other assorted nonsense on [Twitter](http://twitter.com/slamncram)!


	8. Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All those loose ends need tying up. Thor and Loki have confessions to make and a conversation to finish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First and foremost - my most sincere apologies for how long I left everyone waiting for the update. After I posted the last chapter, I went right into the lead-up to my wedding (to the incomparable [AndLatitude](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andlatitude/pseuds/andlatitude), who may have some art for this fic down the line), and life got _extremely_ hectic (and wonderful, but _hectic_). I thought I would have time between the wedding and leaving for our honeymoon to update the fic, but life is funny that way and... I didn't.
> 
> I made mention of the delay on Twitter but I didn't do the same on the fic itself, and didn't bring my computer along, so posting was, unfortunately, out of the question.
> 
> Again, I'm so, _so_ very sorry for the delay.
> 
> I hope you all enjoy this chapter - it is the final one before the epilogue, which I will post at the end of the week.
> 
> Much love!

“Is he asleep?”

“Yeah. They both are.”

The last 48 hours had felt almost like some kind of fever dream to Thor. Between going to Loki’s show, rushing to the hospital with his mother, spending most of the day there with his family, coming home and drinking with his brothers, and then falling asleep with Loki curled against his back, he wasn’t entirely sure that it _wasn’t_. When he’d gotten into the Coronet to drive out here and see everyone and help with the recovery period, he had expected some level of the unexpected.

He hadn’t quite expected everything that had happened, but he wasn’t complaining. At least, not about most of it.

Today had, again, been a day of going between his parents’ house and the hospital. Loki had elected to drive them, so Thor had spent part of his day in the Prius, making digs at Loki about it, just to have Loki remind him that it was probably better on gas than his car, _and_ it had personal climate control. The rest of the day had been spent listening to the nurse’s instructions on Odin’s time at home, which had amounted to less stress and more bed rest with a healthy dose of some kind of physical activity. He wasn’t sure his father was _keen_ on it, but Frigga had nodded and said they would be taking evening walks every day, and Odin hadn’t argued, so that, in Thor’s mind, was progress.

Those evening walks had started tonight. An hour after dinner, Frigga had gotten them all up and out and they’d gone for a walk, as a family, with no bickering. Or, next to no bickering.

There had definitely been a moment when Karnilla and Loki had gotten close. That, however, was par for the course. It was never going to change, in Thor’s opinion, and he’d taken a special kind of pleasure in having been the one to distract Loki from it, the two of them hanging back, a little, walking side by side in amicable silence that still crackled with an undercurrent of things they were leaving unsaid.

If Thor had his way, though, they wouldn’t be unsaid for much longer.

He’d spent some time with his parents, tonight, along with his brothers. The three of them had breached the suggestion of Heimdall, and while it was obvious Odin wasn’t _thrilled_ that things were being done in a way he hadn’t envisioned, between the three of them and Frigga, he’d acknowledged that his sons should have the freedom to do what they wanted, and openly admitted that Heimdall was a much better choice than any of them, and as much of a son to him as they were, in his own way.

Odin hadn’t come to the idea organically, but he was warming to it. And he was warming to the idea of retirement. They’d all discussed that as well, and a tearful Frigga had thanked them for bringing it up. For Thor, that meant that his time coming home had been used wisely. He had come here and set out to do something for his mother to make this all easier on her, and he’d achieved it. When he’d poked his head into his parents’ room just a few minutes ago to check and make sure everything was all right, he’d paused a moment to take in the sight of his father, asleep on his back, and his mother curled up at his side, smiling in her sleep with an arm over his belly. They were relaxed, and at peace, and after the way everything had been going this week, that was all he could ask for.

For them, at least.

Baldr and Karnilla had gone home an hour ago. Thor had expected Loki might have done the same, so when he’d come downstairs and found him sitting on the kitchen counter, scrolling on his phone, he’d been pleasantly surprised. He’d gotten so used to Loki running away, coming in to see him here almost made him want to scoop him up and lock him away somewhere so he _couldn’t_ run away. Not yet, anyway.

“You’re not going home yet?” Thor asked, casually, pulling open the refrigerator. He heard the sound of Loki’s phone locking behind him, but he didn’t turn around, continuing to stare into the fridge like there was something specific he was looking for.

“No. Maybe not again, tonight. It’s late again.”

Thor hummed, pulling a can of sparkling water from inside the door. He turned, holding it up to Loki in question and Loki made a face.

“Uh, no. I hate the aftertaste of that shit. Were you planning on staying up a little longer, then?” The tone that Loki used was clearly meant to be casual. Like he was just asking because he was simply curious, but Thor had a feeling there was more to it.

Maybe it was more of a _hope_ that there was more to it, but he wasn’t about to shut down whatever Loki’s reason for asking was so soon.

“I was thinking I might, yeah. It’s been a long day, I needed some quiet time.” Thor met Loki’s eyes. For their entire lives, he’d been trying to learn how to read his younger brother. Loki was the sort of person who wore a mask most of the time, trying to keep his inner workings to his knowledge and his knowledge alone. Thor liked to think that he was one of the very few people in the world who could manage to see under the mask.

Even after so long apart, this week, he was beginning to think he’d relearned how to get behind it and see what Loki was thinking.

He’d like to _think_ he was, anyway. The truth was, when he looked at Loki, he couldn’t tell if Loki was just asking to be curious, or if he had and ulterior motive.

With Loki, though, it was always good to bank on the ulterior motive, and Thor thought himself smart to have done so, because even though Loki shrugged, he slid off the counter at the same time, looking Thor’s way.

“Mind if I join you? Or will I be too much for your ‘quiet time’?”

Thor laughed. “If you’d asked me a week ago? That would have been a yes. Now?” He jerked his head, indicating that he wanted Loki to follow. “I was kind of hoping you would join me. I know it’s late but I was thinking... Maybe now we can finally talk.”

Loki didn’t answer, but he didn’t need to. Wordlessly, he walked in the direction Thor had nodded, leading the way towards the back of the house, and Frigga’s solarium.

It was a place they had spent a lot of time, growing up. Especially now, with the night sky overhead, and the glass walls opening up onto the back of the house, it felt special. It felt like a good place, the _right_ place, for them to be having a conversation. To be finally sitting down and talking like they hadn’t for a long time.

There was still the chance that Loki would run, but as Thor closed the french doors behind them and turned to see Loki making himself comfortable on the little couch until the domed glass ceiling, he suspected he might not.

If anything, at least he couldn’t order Thor to leave, this time. That was a win.

Even so, after he sat down and opened the can he’d brought along, neither of them spoke. They sat in silence, Thor sipping his drink, Loki looking around the room, and out into the dark yard. It was like neither of them knew where to start. Thor certainly didn’t. Loki was such a volatile creature, his temper balanced delicately on the head of a pin, that one wrong opening sentence could send him into a rage. That much Thor knew.

Especially when it came to what Thor wanted to talk about.

“It wasn’t an accident.”

Loki’s voice was quiet, and Thor was so lost in his own thoughts on how to start that, for a good long pause, he didn’t react. When he did, it was to frown, looking over at Loki.

“What?”

Loki looked scared. Thor hated seeing that expression on his brother’s face. He’d hated it when they were kids and Loki had accidentally ruined something in Odin’s office when he wasn’t supposed to be in there. He’d hated it when they were teenagers and Loki had been on the edge of coming out. He hated it now, when Loki was sitting next to him, and despite all the evidence to the contrary, seemed to think what he was about to say was going to ruin something that they had only just begun to rediscover.

“When I came to visit you, that time,” Loki continued, quietly, his eyes focusing on Thor’s shoulder more than his face. “When I got into bed with you. It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t because I had been drinking, or I thought you were someone else. The texts I had been sending you? The photos? That was all... testing the water. Playing with fire, and getting addicted to it.

“I knew it was wrong. I wasn’t supposed to look at the pictures of you with your friends and think about how hot you were. I wasn’t supposed to watch you with your girlfriends and hate them. I wasn’t supposed to hear about your boyfriends and hate them, either, but I did. You were... mine. I don’t expect you to understand that, because it’s _crazy_. It’s absolutely fucking batshit. You’re my brother, but all I could think about was how much I wanted you to be mine, and only mine. I didn’t want to share you.”

This was more than Loki had ever said, far more than he’d ever admitted. Thor knew that, and he knew how hard it was for Loki to open up about things, _especially_ something like this. He didn’t want to interrupt, and risk not hearing more. Instead of speaking, he reached back onto the windowsill behind them and nudged over one of Frigga’s aloe vera plants, setting down his can firmly enough that he hoped Loki understood what he was saying.

Thor was listening. Loki had his undivided attention.

“I played games. I told myself I was just being a brat, being the weird, gay little brother, but, eventually, I was doing it because I wanted you to tell me I looked good. When I said ‘would you date me’ and shit like that, I wanted to hear ‘yes’, so I could tell myself I wasn’t the only weird one. And then that night happened, and I thought I could handle it. I knew it was going too far, but...”

Loki looked up, finally, meeting his eyes, and Thor saw the fire there.

“You kissed me. And you kissed me back on Friday, too. I just...”

Bringing a hand up, Loki pushed his hair back from his face, squeezing his eyes shut. As much as Thor wanted to reach out and grab him, he didn’t, and it was probably a good thing, because a second later, Loki swung that arm out, gesturing helplessly.

“It’s fucked up. It’s _fucked_ up. You kissed me, and it was like _no one_. No one else has ever made me feel the way you did that night. I’d never felt it again until the other night, and it’s so _fucked_, because you’re my _brother_.” Loki looked his way again, his expression almost lost. “It’s wrong. I’m wrong. Because at the end of the day, even after years of telling myself I _hated_ you, with everything in me, I’ve been in love with you since then, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

The words hit Thor like a truck.

Loki wasn’t known for being open. It took a lot to get him to that point, and even though Thor _knew_ that, day by day, little by little, this week had been wearing them both down, he hadn’t expected to hear those words. To get such an open, blunt admission from Loki was like a once in a lifetime chance to see a solar eclipse. You had to savour it, and cherish it, because it wasn’t something that came around all that often.

But, here it was.

Loki was sitting next to him, one leg propped up on the couch, his eyes glossy and a little manic, eyebrows furrowed, telling Thor the one thing Thor hadn’t expected him to say.

Loki was in love with him. He had been for a long damn time, and that was terrifying.

Thor could relate.

“You’re not going to run away, right?” He asked, quietly, making sure to give Loki a smile as he reached for him, careful and slow.

The laugh Loki gave was forced, reedy. “Oh, I’m considering it.”

Even so, he didn’t stop Thor from touching him. More than that, when Thor’s hands smoothed from his shoulders, down to his elbows, he relaxed. Thor could feel the tension in his muscles, still, but he let his shoulders down, and let his breath out, and together they just breathed for a few seconds.

Thor needed those few seconds, because he didn’t know where to start.

“I never told you. I know I should have told you. I should have stayed and talked about it. _We _should have worked it out, but I didn’t give us much of a chance.” Thor started, keeping his voice low. As he spoke, he kept his hands on Loki, curled gently around his arms, thumbs rubbing slow, back and forth. “It’s not like I didn’t kiss you, because I did. You got in bed with me, and said my name, and that was all I needed. You’d been talking to me for _months_ about what you liked, Loki. What you wanted to do with someone in bed. How you wanted to just be kissed and touched until you felt lost...”

The sky outside flashed for a moment, and the corner of Loki’s mouth twitched. “That’s a pretty specific quote.”

Thor smiled, shrugged a shoulder.

“They were pretty specific messages. And I never really stopped thinking about them. About you. So, when you got in bed with me, I thought... here he is. My pretty little brother. He’s had all these boyfriends, but _fuck_, I want to be the one to treat him right. And I knew how fucked up that was. I knew how fucked up it was that you were in my bed. It didn’t stop me.”

Loki took a slow breath through his parted lips, the sound of it nearly drowned out by the rumbling outside.

“Maybe I wasn’t as brave as you, though. I was scared of what I was feeling. It was wrong. Bad. Maybe I was reading everything wrong. I was stressed out from exams, I wasn’t thinking straight. I hadn’t been with anyone for a while. There were a lot of things I used to explain it to myself, after, when I was driving away from here, and from you.”

As he’d been speaking, rain had started outside, drumming against the glass roof, and sliding down the walls around them. Somehow, that made this seem even more important, even more special. It made the solarium feel like a world apart from everything else, for just the two of them.

“But, you just said it. It was fucked up, but I was in love with you. It _is_ fucked up, but Friday reminded me of all of it, and I’m still in love with you.”

Thor reached up, cupping Loki’s face in one hand, smiling when Loki closed his eyes and took a shaky breath, lightning flashing outside again. “My bratty, talented, pretty little brother.”

Loki’s hand found his wrist, curling around it. He didn’t pull his hand away. If anything, he leaned into it, and opened his eyes, searching Thor’s face.

“We are so, so fucked up.”

Thor laughed.

“Yeah, we are.” He wiped at the wetness at the corner of Loki’s eye. “And I don’t have any idea what to do about it, but it is what it is. I’m in love with you.”

“Fuck.”

Faster than Thor knew what to do with, Loki was pushing him back against the back of the couch, and putting himself in his lap again. His arms went around Thor’s shoulders, he kissed him, and outside, thunder boomed.

This wasn’t a kiss like Friday night. This wasn’t a cautious kiss, asking to take time to feel things out. This was the same kind of kiss Thor had given Loki that night all those years ago. Deep, and hungry, ferocious, just the way Loki was. It went through Thor like fire, and this time, when he gripped Loki’s hips and pulled him closer, Loki didn’t push him away or warn him to stop.

He did break the kiss, though, breathing hard with his forehead pressed to Thor’s.

“So, what do we do?” He asked. “We’re in love. And you’re my brother.”

“Ideally?” Thor answered. The rain had picked up, and was really coming down around them, now, lightning flashing and thunder rumbling every minute. It was a show, just for them, but Thor wasn’t paying attention. Instead, he was kissing Loki’s jaw, and relishing in the way Loki’s fingers tightened on his shoulders, and the way he tipped his head to the side so Thor’s kisses could travel down his neck. “I want to be with you.”

Loki sighed, and Thor dared to push his hands under his brother’s thin sweatshirt, feeling the warm skin of his back and sides, tracing the soft edge of his waistband.

“I never got over you.” Loki murmured, shifting in Thor’s lap. Those words, and his movements were an invitation if Thor had ever seen one, and heat flooded south in a rush. “It’s so fucking embarrassing...”

Thor slid his hands around to the button of Loki’s jeans. “Not to me,” he said, quietly, looking up into Loki’s eyes, asking for permission. Loki nodded, and Thor undid his pants, grinning when Loki batted his hands out of the way and reached for the front of Thor’s own jeans. It meant he needed to shift back, a bit, but Thor was happy to make sure he didn’t fall. His hands slipped under the waistband, hands travelling back, sliding between denim and cotton to grab Loki’s ass. He got a gasp for his trouble, Loki surging forward to kiss him again while he pulled Thor’s pants open with deft hands.

“Are we really going to do this?” Loki asked when he pulled away from Thor’s mouth again. His eyes, in the flashes of lightning, were dark, black rimmed by green, his cheeks flushed, but he was smiling. Excited. They were about to do something so wrong, in a place they really shouldn’t.

Thor couldn’t think of anything more perfect.

“We should have done it back then.” Thor answered. “I should have kept going. Wore you out. Locked the door in the morning and kept going until you couldn’t run away, let alone walk anywhere.”

These were the sorts of things he thought about, late at night when the memory of that sound Loki had made in his bed woke him up. How badly he wished he’d taken what Loki was offering, and shown him, over and over, how he deserved to be treated. How he should be loved. It was something Thor knew he regretted at night, and in the daylight tried to forget.

He never really had, though, and now it was pouring out of him to great reward. Loki was pushing his jeans down, scrambling off Thor to get rid of them, and Thor, light-headed with glee, didn’t waste a second, lifting his hips and hooking his thumbs in both his jeans and boxers to do the same.

Then Loki stopped.

“I don’t... I don’t have lube here.”

It was the sort of thing that Thor hadn’t stopped to think about. He wasn’t sure how he had expected himself to, with his body taking the lead, knowing it was about to get something he’d wanted to experience for so damn long, but he was still annoyed with himself. Annoyed, he glanced around the solarium like he expected something to jump out at him. His eyes landed on the aloe plant and for a moment, he seriously considered it.

Thankfully, seeing that reminded him of something else.

“I have some. I, uh, left it here last time I was visiting. In my room, though...” Last time he’d been visiting. Brought supplies with him because he’d been hoping to get lucky, find someone he could flaunt in photos that Loki might see, and be jealous of.

It wasn’t his finest moment, and it hadn’t amounted to anything, except for a bottle of lube in his bedside table upstairs, next to an old, crusted shut tube of aloe gel he’d always kept on hand for his sunburns.

“Stay there.” Loki ordered, stepping out of his jeans and, in a second, he was gone, the french door open where he’d slipped through and run off in his underwear and sweatshirt. Thor was only too happy to follow those orders, but he did slip out of his jeans and boxers, pulling a condom from his wallet before tossing it aside.

When Loki got back, less than a minute later with the bottle of lube in one hand and the comforter from Thor’s bed draped over his arm, Thor was where he’d left him, but from the look on Loki’s face, he looked considerably better. The french door closed behind Loki with a soft click, the comforter hit the floor, followed by Loki’s briefs, and as thunder rumbled over them, he climbed back into Thor’s lap, lube in one hand, and kissed him, muffling a little moan as he pressed their hips together.

It was divine. Skin on skin, Loki’s cock bumping against his own, and Thor knew he couldn’t be blamed for pulling Loki in tight. He’d wanted this for years. To finally get it felt like he was being rewarded for undergoing years of suffering in silence.

“Got this,” Loki muttered against his lips, pressing the lube into Thor’s hand. “Don’t make me wait, Thor. I’ve been waiting so fucking long...”

If Thor needed any more invitation than that, he wouldn’t argue if someone called him an idiot. He didn’t hesitate to pop the cap on the little bottle, looking up at Loki while he coated his fingers generously, and tapped his brother’s hip. Obediently, Loki rose up on his knees, his hands going to either side of Thor’s head, eyes watching his.

He looked expectant, and a little anxious, and so damn beautiful in the flash of lightning over his head, and Thor loved him.

“You keep looking at me,” Thor murmured, and slow, careful, he slipped his hand between Loki’s legs and pushed his fingers inside.

It was beautiful.

Loki felt good, tight, but loosening around Thor as he worked him open. It wasn’t just that, though. It was the look on Loki’s face. The desperate bliss, the way he bit his lip and fought to keep his eyes on Thor, even as he rocked his hips back, further onto Thor’s fingers. If his cheeks had been flushed before, it was nothing compared to now.

He looked so beautiful, and Thor _hated_ the idea that anyone else might have ever gotten the distinct honour of seeing him this way.

If he had things the way he wanted, no one else ever would. This would be for Thor, and Thor alone. The sight of Loki grinning, teasing, rocking back on his fingers. The sound of his hitched breathing, and then his demanding whisper.

“I want you.”

Thor grinned. “You have me.”

Loki managed a glare, and Thor slipped his fingers out, slow, biting back a laugh as Loki reached for the condom and tore the packet open.

They were both hard, and Loki’s cock had left a spot of precum on Thor’s shirt. Thor’s was gathered in a bead at the head, and as he watched, Loki rubbed his thumb through it, swiping slow down the underside, the pad of his thumb pressing there while he grinned, watching Thor’s face.

“You’re a fucking brat,” Thor growled, working not to lift his hips.

Loki laughed, and pulled his hand away, just to bring the condom down, rolling it over him slow and careful. Every brush of his fingers felt like the most delicious fire, and as much as Thor wanted to pretend he wanted Loki to hurry, he could have spent hours letting Loki torture him like this. Loki picked up the lube from where Thor had dropped it, and slowly worked his hand up and down Thor’s cock, leaning in and pecking his lips.

“We’re so fucked up,” he whispered, and Thor laughed.

“Yeah, we are. I can live with it. If this – mm – if this is what I get for being fucked up, I’m happy.”

Loki’s hand left him, and found both of his. He stepped back off the couch, and Thor followed.

“You’re happy?” Loki asked, lowering himself to the floor where he’d dropped the comforter. If Thor hadn’t already been hard and desperately ready, the sight of Loki laying back, and reaching for one of the couch pillows to slide under his hips would have done it.

“Very,” Thor promised, climbing over him. Loki’s legs found his waist, wrapping around him and pulling him in. Playful. _Happy_. It felt like so long since Thor had seen it before he’d seen it on the stage. Now, Loki was smiling like that for him. Smiling, and taking a deep breath as the storm raged outside, and Thor’s cock pushed against his hole. “I’ve never wanted anyone the way I’ve wanted you.”

Loki’s smile wavered, but not by much. “Going to get sappy on me?”

Thor didn’t answer. It was so much easier to push inside Loki, sliding slow into his heat, and watch as Loki gave up on teasing him just to tip his head back and let out a little whine. Thor’s hands stayed at his hips, holding him still, thumbs stroking over his skin in soothing circles as he bottomed out inside him.

It wasn’t like he was unaffected.

This was something he’d wanted for so long and never dared to admit to himself. No one could ever compare to Loki. His quick wit, his sharp tongue, the way he nestled in Thor’s chest and that smile he seemed to reserve for Thor and Thor alone.

Loki was everything Thor had ever wanted, and now Thor had him, on his back, in their mother’s solarium, in front of the french doors where anyone could see them, and as thunder rumbled outside, Loki nodded and Thor began to move.

“Oh...”

Loki’s eyes were closed, but he had one hand fisted in his hair, and the other in the comforter.

“_Fuck_, Thor...”

Thor understood. He was feeling the same, burying himself inside Loki, again and again, in a rhythm just fast enough to make him feel like he was losing it, slowly.

“Never.” Thor repeated, leaning down. It changed the angle and Loki’s eyes snapped open as he groaned. His hands grabbed for Thor, short nailed scraping over his skin before he found his grip. “Never wanted this with _anyone_... like I do with you.”

Loki huffed, somewhere between a whine and a laugh, and Thor grinned down at him, their faces so close that he could see every emotion in Loki’s eyes when lightning flashed.

“I always – looked for you.” He breathed. “Never found you. Not until--”

He broke off in a whimper. Thor watched, memorizing every second as he pushed Loki’s thigh higher, burying his cock deeper inside him. This was what he wanted. Every night. Every day. Loki, his eyes barely open, lost in pleasure so deep there were tears shining on his cheeks, clinging to Thor with his cock trapped between them while Thor fucked him.

Though, that wasn’t what this was.

Thor was giving Loki what he’d been wanting to give him for years. He didn’t need to say it, because he knew Loki was feeling it. Drowning in it.

Thor loved him, and Loki knew that. Thor was making sure of it, giving Loki what he wanted. When Loki gasped ‘faster’, he listened. When Loki reached for him, pulling him down to his mouth, Thor swallowed his whimpers, and demanded more, grinding his hips against Loki’s ass and relishing in the way his hands shook against Thor’s jaw.

Nothing mattered except this. What this was, Thor knew, was fucked up, but it was what they both wanted. It was good in a way he’d never felt before, it felt like Thor had found something he’d been looking for, never wanting to realize it had been right in front of him.

Nothing mattered except the way Loki gasped his name, the way Loki pulled him in tighter with his legs. Nothing mattered except the storm lighting up the two of them, twisted up on the floor, lost in each other. Nothing mattered, just them.

“Come on, Loki,” Thor urged, finding his brother’s hand. Lightning flashed and Loki’s fingers laced with his, gripping tight. He was trying so hard to hold on, to draw this out.

He didn’t need to. Thor already knew he was going to do whatever it took to make sure they got this as often as they both felt capable.

“Come on, baby.”

Loki whimpered, and Thor grinned. “Thor...”

“Yeah, Loki, come on... I got you, baby.”

Thunder boomed around them, but Loki was the one that shook and came apart, gripping Thor’s hand tight, and Thor heard nothing, not a damn thing.

Nothing but Loki’s broken cry of his name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! The epilogue (and therefore the final part of this fic) will be posted in the next few days!
> 
> Come yell at me about Thorki, this fic, and other assorted nonsense on [Twitter](http://twitter.com/slamncram)!


	9. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New York City, One Year Later.

“You’re the guest of honour.”

“I’m _a_ guest of honour.”

Thor laughed, and rolled over, pinning Loki against the mattress and kissing him.

It had been a year since that night in the solarium. It had been a wonder that they didn’t wake anyone in the house up, but the storm had been a blessing. Mjolnir, of course, had been awake, giving them an accusing look when they’d finally untangled from each other and left the solarium, but she hadn’t seemed to care much beyond the fact that she’d been left alone while there was a thunderstorm.

They’d shared Thor’s bed, again, falling asleep in each other’s arms.

The next night, Thor had spent the night at Loki’s, and he’d done what he promised, leaving Loki in bed the next morning, groaning that he might never walk again. It didn’t change the fact that he climbed on top of Thor that afternoon and rode him hard.

That had been a damn good weekend, the end of Thor’s visit, and when he’d hit the road to drive back to New York, he’d left with a few promises.

One, that Heimdall would be taking over for Odin as the head of Nine Realms Corporation.

Two, that his father was retiring. That had actually worked out and, right now, their parents were off somewhere on a very expensive cruise, enjoying themselves and Odin’s retirement.

Finally, he’d left with a promise that he wouldn’t be a stranger. He would see his family a lot more often.

And he would see Loki the most of them all.

If Baldr had suspected anything, that spring when Thor had flown out to meet his niece, Thor wasn’t confirming it. He wasn’t sure if Loki was, either, but Baldr seemed to have his suspicions. Maybe it was the fact that Thor had turned down his offer of a room to stay at their place, claiming he’d already told Loki he would be staying with him.

Baldr knew Loki only had the one bed, and the couch wasn’t nearly big enough for Thor for a whole three nights, but he didn’t ask, and they didn’t tell.

Thor’s job made it hard to get away, but Loki’s stardom had come in handy. They’d had long weeks where Loki came out to New York and stayed with him while he did all the things a drag queen did. His star was rising even higher, and during the day, Thor was his proud big brother.

At night, or at least, once they were behind closed doors, however, he made sure that Loki didn’t just feel like a star, but he saw them. More than a few times, Loki had made sure Thor had seen those stars, too.

This morning, though, there wasn’t time for that and, after kissing Loki until he was breathless, Thor slipped off the bed and made his way over to his dresser, leaving his brother and lover pouting at him from the mattress.

It was a weird arrangement. Val and Carol knew, as did Wanda and Stephen.

And, most recently, Thor’s friends Steve and Bucky. They hadn’t been told so much as they had found out, and Thor had thought that it would mean the end of their friendship. It very well could have, because he _knew_ how messed up his and Loki’s relationship was, but, somehow, Steve and Bucky had rationalized it all to themselves. They were nice to Loki, fine with their relationship. Loki and Bucky had actually become really good friends.

Enough so that, not only had Loki been invited to Steve and Bucky’s wedding next month, but they were going to be picking the two of them up today for the parade.

“Don’t give me that look,” Thor warned, not turning around as he pulled out clean underwear. “I’m not the one who has to get into drag. You should already be getting out of bed and into the shower, Miss Chief.”

Loki groaned, pulling the sheet up over his head.

“I don’t want to be a drag queen anymore.”

“You’re so fucking full of it,” Thor laughed, walking across the hall and into the bathroom. He started the shower, checking the water before walking back to the bedroom. Loki had, at least, sat up, and when Thor reappeared he fixed his glare back on his face. “You love the attention. Come on, get up. Your public awaits.”

By the time Steve and Bucky showed up, Loki was well on the way to greeting his public. Or, rather, Miss Chief had appeared to greet _hers_. Her wig was huge, as, Thor had learned, it _should_ be, a mass of black curls cascading down one side. She was wearing a bodysuit that looked like nothing more than ribbons in the colours of the rainbow clinging to her skin, ending in a short, fringed skirt that barely covered the curves of her hips and ass. Thor wasn’t complaining about that. He’d gotten a nice look from the couch when she’d bent down to pick up the chiffon cape that was attached to the jewelled silver bands she had snapped around her upper arms.

That was how she was dressed, when Steve and Bucky showed up. Bold, in her rainbow dress, and rainbow cape, and just as tall as Thor in the silver heels she was wearing.

She made a picture in their little group. Thor had opted for a rainbow muscle tank and little red shorts, and had let Loki paint a rainbow into his beard after he’d gotten out of the shower. Steve was wearing a backwards ball cap with the American flag in rainbow stripes on it, cut-off jean shorts, and a tank of his own in the purple, blue and pink of the bisexual flag. Bucky was the only one who came close to Loki, with his thick, brown hair pulled back in a tye-dyed ribbon, a rainbow flag painted on his bicep. He’d clearly cut off the sleeves of his shirt that read ‘PROUD AF’, and his jean shorts gave more than enough space to show off the rainbow coloured boots he’d chosen to wear. On top of his head he’d perched a pair of sunglasses whose lenses were tinted to match the rainbow, and Thor watched Loki grin when he saw them.

Then he, as Miss Chief, plucked them from Bucky’s head and slipped them on.

“You all look like clowns. I can’t _believe_ this is the entourage I, a guest of _honour, _am being forced to arrive at the parade with.”

Steve laughed. “Yeah, all right, your highness. Are we about ready to go, here?”

“We were just waiting for you. Getting in a morning fuck?” Miss Chief asked, glancing at Bucky over the tops of the stolen sunglasses. To Thor’s surprise, Bucky’s cheeks went pink and the laugh that came out of Miss Chief’s mouth was entirely Loki’s.

“Oh. Spicy. Thor wouldn’t let me.”

It was still a little off-putting when one of them made a comment like that. Thor always expected Steve or Bucky to react with discomfort or disgust, and he was always pleased when, like now, they laughed.

“Sounds like he’s a stronger man than Steve. I don’t know how Thor resists _this_.”

Miss Chief grinned. “I know. I’m smoking hot.”

As they made their way to the front door, Steve and Bucky heading out ahead of them, Thor reached out, grabbing Loki by the hand and pulling him back. It was a dangerous manuever, while he was wearing those heels, but he didn’t fall, just came willing and easy into the kiss Thor gave him, pressing his lips to Loki’s red painted ones.

He had good memories of those red painted lips.

“You look good.”

“I know.” Loki replied, his voice dropping out of the slightly higher pitch he put on for his persona. “You like?”

Thor looked him over. “I do. But I kind of like it when you’re not so put together. Kind of like last night.”

Loki’s grin was wicked when he leaned in and whispered in Thor’s ear.

“Be good, and I won’t be so put together tonight, either.”

With that, he laced his fingers with Thor’s and tugged him out the door, yelling “don’t rush me!” in response to the honk of Steve’s truck horn, his heels clicking on the concrete walkway.

This was far from what Thor had expected, a year ago when he’d crossed the threshold of his parents’ house and found himself buried in all their family drama all over again. All the animosity, all the secrets. All the pain and misunderstandings. He’d waded right into it, willing, and expected nothing good to come of it.

But this was much, much better than anything he could have imagined, and, after spending years without it, years without Loki? He wasn’t going to lose it, and he certainly wasn’t going to let him go.

Not for anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so, _so_ much for reading, for coming on this wild ride with me!
> 
> This was a story I've been wanting to tell for a while, and I was never able to really _nail down_ the way I wanted it to be told. Once I finally did, I was anxious about sharing it. The reception for this fic, my little baby, has been overwhelming. Amazing, sweet, mind-blowing in some cases.
> 
> I cannot thank you enough for reading the fic. It doesn't matter if you were reading as I posted, are reading the whole thing now with the posting of the final part, or are reading it long after I've finished it. _Thank you_, from the bottom of my heart.
> 
> Come yell at me about this fic, and other assorted nonsense on [Twitter](http://twitter.com/slamncram)!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! The next chapter will be posted in a few days!
> 
> Come yell at me about Thorki (and other assorted nonsense) on [Twitter!](http://twitter.com/slamncram)


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